Manifold Destiny
by friendlyquark
Summary: A terrible weapon left over from the Time War threatens the Doctor, Rose, and the rest of the Pete's World crew. With a second Master, and the Mashas' revolution going on, it's a race against time to survive and to save the universe from the Rani's legacy of evil.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One - The Chase

The Black Guardian leaned back in his chair and smiled grimly.

"An interesting gambit," he mused aloud, eyeing his opponent with a frown.

The chessboard was shifting fast between them and he studied the structure of it with surprise. He'd been demonstrably ahead and now he was losing ground. He eyed the distant reaches of space and allowed himself a small smile.

He reached and shifted a piece on the board and the White Guardian's eyes narrowed in thought.

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" he asked.

"Why? Do you think that your pieces cannot counter it?" the Black Guardian asked smugly.

No, I have faith in them," his opponent assured him. "It just seems... desperate."

The smile fell from his face and his dark eyes snapped in anger.

"We'll see who is desperate, soon enough."

* * *

The Master looked up from the console of his TARDIS as the alarm buzzed and blinked at the screen in surprise. He had a pursuer.

"Who the...?" he snapped out with a frown. It was another TARDIS and he blinked in surprise at the screen. He could feel the faint Song of his people, but it was too dim and too far away for him to make out the details. The only one who seemed to know of his existence was the other version of himself, but why would he be pursuing him, instead of being pleased by his removal?

It read as a type-90 hospital craft, which was baffling. Where had his other self gotten such a thing? Still, it was probably not heavily armed, which was a benefit. His own TARDIS had excellent shields and a deadly weapons array,

Would Susan be on board the other craft? That was the real question. Would the other him risk bringing her near to another version of himself? He nearly laughed aloud at the thought. As if it would matter, why would she care about him, the cut-rate version of the one she had? She's take one look at him, the one that had failed, the one that had killed her, and she'd turn away in disgust. She'd be right to as well, he knew.

Still, in an insane, upside-down way, he trusted his other self to take care of her. He was clearly more talented at it than the Master was himself. He would never harm Susan, but he had no choice but to lose them. She mustn't be in the blast radius when he fired up the Lens. There had to be a way to discourage them from following. He frowned and reluctantly decided that he'd have to do it the hard way.

He sent his ship spinning through the void, seeding it in his wake with snap-mines, Möbius barriers, and various other goodies.

"Step lively, chaps," he growled, and set about to shake his pursuer.

* * *

Stripped of its chaotic, curling, overgrown pathways, the network looked rather forlorn, rather like a sheep that had been shorn. And it was rearranging itself. It was forming itself into a series of overlapping circles that formed a geometric shape that looked rather like a flower. It was the Lens. It wasn't being used, wasn't powering up, it was just... there.

* * *

"I've been trying to concentrate a lot of my repair efforts here," Aislynn said sadly, escorting Owen through the scorched medi-bay. "Unfortunately, it's going more slowly than I would prefer. However, I do have some goodies that you might like," she showed him the tools that were available. "Tissue regenerator… Bone-resetter, and pain dampeners," she pointed out. "There's a whole decontamination suite... well, there was anyway." She smiled at him. "I think a clever doctor could make quite a lot out of what is still available."

"I'm fairly clever, but I'd have to know how to use any of it, to be able to do much." He examined the tools and bits with interest, but without much understanding. "You got a manual for any of it?"

She crossed to a wall, where there was a half-sphere protruding. He had seen them all over the ship. "This is the database access." She tapped it, and a square of light appeared, projected images scrolling across it. "There are help files for everything in here. They are for all educational levels and include tutorials and demonstrations."

"Right. Well, let's see how clever I really am," he muttered and dived into the complexities of Gallifreyan medical technology. Aislynn tapped the half sphere, quietly uploading the file that Dar had given her, with all of the medical data on the Nanites. It would be available for him, if he wanted to look at it. With a small smile, Aislynn crept out and left him to his fun.

* * *

The Doctor ran into the console room to see Rose and Susan at the controls.

"So we've found the Master, I take it?" he asked, wondering why both women were giggling a bit.

"We've got coordinates to the main complex!" Susan crowed. "Because your wife is genius!"

"I think so too," said the Doctor as he headed over to help and Rose grinned at them both.

"You took your time!" Susan teased, since she was piloting in her jim-jams, her hair in a braid at the back of her head and her feet in slippers. Rose was wearing jeans, boots, and her favourite purple leather jacket over a blue t-shirt, but then, she'd been up all night working on the equations.

"I always dress for the occasion," he intoned solemnly and Susan stuck her tongue out at him.

"Not funny, Grandfather!" she shot back.

"He is a bit of a peacock, though," Rose teased and Susan nodded.

The Doctor was about to protest that, but then the TARDIS, ever so delicately, brushed against the first snap-mine. Alarms began blaring at once, the Cloister Bell donging loudest of all.

Everything within the TARDIS seemed to slow down, but the slowdown was asymmetrical. The north wall of the console room seemed to pull away from the south wall. It was as if the room was a rubber band, stretching out farther and farther, becoming impossibly long. All over the ship the same phenomenon occurred. The longer the room became, the more tension soaked into the atmosphere, leaving their ears protesting, as the air pressure changed. It was a grinding moment of wrong, leaving everyone on board clenching their teeth. Even the sound of the alarms was distorted, like they were wailing through a very long tunnel, or from the bottom of a well.

Then, when it seemed as though they couldn't stand it anymore, when everything was stretched to the breaking point, the pressure ended, releasing its hold, and the TARDIS rebounded, as if someone had let the stretched-out rubber band go, with the characteristic "snap" from which snap-mines took their name.

Everything not physically bolted down went flying violently into the opposite wall, which was the people, and tools, since all the furniture was firmly attached to the floor. Additional alarms started screeching, joining the first.

"What the hell was that?" Rose shouted.

"A snap mine!" Susan gasped out, shocked to her core. Had the Master actually dropped mines behind him? She couldn't quite believe it.

"Well, that wasn't fun, but we seem to be okay," Rose said as she checked the TARDIS.

"That was just one," the Doctor contradicted. "If we hit a cluster of those, it'll tear the ship apart!"

"Excuse me?" Rose gasped.

"They'll pull her in a dozen different directions at once!" he shouted. "We'd never survive it."

"Right! So, let's not hit any more of them!" Rose insisted and the others nodded.

"Good plan!" the Doctor shot back.

* * *

Aislynn went to her desk in her office a few doors down, and pulled the tablet Dar had given her out of its cage, opening it up. She didn't want to, but Owen needed more help than she could give.

So she typed out her first chat message.

"You said a doctor survived the war?" she typed.

"Yes," the answer came back immediately.

"Do you think she would consult for Dr. Harper?"

"I think that when she finds out that I didn't bring her in immediately, she's going to twist me into a pretzel and re-engineer me as a wombat," came the reply.

"Perhaps we could arrange… I don't know, a video conference of some sort. For Dr. Harper."

"I think that could work, assuming I can still use a keypad after I tell Susan," he replied.

"I can provide scans and other data which I believe she would want to see. If you can arrange something… I would be grateful."

"My honour, my Lady, She's off-world right now, but as soon as she returns, I'll arrange a chat," he replied. Aislynn nodded. She would have time to collect her thoughts, which was good. She was feeling very nervous just then.

* * *

The Doctor grimaced.

"I'm reconfiguring the shields!" he told them and Rose nodded, picking up his part of the piloting.

"What are you doing?" Susan asked, shouting over the alarms, as she ran diagnostics on the ship.

"A Cow scoop," he shouted back, trying to push the mines out of the way, so that they could keep clear of any clusters. It was hardly the best solution, but it was the only one he had. Susan's TARDIS was a hospital ship; she had no weapons.

"What about the other ones?" Susan asked. "That will only stop the snap mines."

"I know, but I know what to do with the Artron Bursts," he replied. He slowed the TARDIS, Susan and Rose following him, waiting for his orders. He looked out over the mines and thought. He frowned and drew upon his experiences in the Time War.

"Why are we slowing?" Rose asked.

"I'm broadcasting the deactivation sequences hard-wired into the mines by the builders," he told her and waited. The Master had changed the codes, of course, and it took him precious seconds to work out his alterations and send the correct sequence. They went silent and inert as they slipped past the now harmless mines and headed out towards the Master's position again.

"Brilliant!" Rose crowed and he grinned.

"Yeah, I really am," he chuckled.

* * *

Koschei picked himself up off the floor, bruises blooming on his body, and felt Susan's shock and dismay in his mind. What the hell was his other self doing? He could have seriously injured Susan, which couldn't have been his intention. Whatever else he thought about his alternate universe self, he could not imagine that he'd ever intentionally harm her. Even at his craziest, the very thought of hurting her had made him feel ill. He didn't understand what the other him was thinking.

"Are you all right?" he asked Adie as she struggled to her feet as well.

"Yes, I am fine," she responded, though she was wide-eyed and scared looking.

"Strap in," he ordered and she scrambled into a chair and belted herself in place, as he did the same.

He'd avoided reaching out to the Master since the last time. He was almost afraid to do so, to stick his hand into the blender of the other man's pain again, but just then he had no choice. He had to understand what the other him was thinking.

/Stop that!/ Koschei sent directly to the Master. /What the hell do you think you're doing? Leave the girls alone and stop this, before someone gets hurt!/ Before Susan gets hurt, he really meant, but he doubted the Master would need clarification on that.

Koschei had been the Master for most of his life. It had made him who he was. Whoever he might have been, before Rassilon had gone in and rewired him, that potential self had been warped, twisted, and changed. For all his gentle kindness, his loving nature, the ruthless practicality of the Master still lived in him. He had chosen to use it to serve his loved ones, these days. He'd channelled his rage at all he'd been driven to do, into saving as many as he could from the same fate.

If he could see that his past was foolish and destructive, why couldn't the other version of him see it, too? He was baffled by why the other him was going in the exact opposite direction from where he ought to be. Why was he not coming to Susan?

/It's all pointless and irrelevant, now! The entire purpose for you being this way is gone and dead! So, what's the bloody point? /

/Rassilon's breath!/ Came the unexpected response, bitter and frustrated. /What are you doing? Just get Susan out of the blast radius./

/Blast radius? What the hell are you talking about? Let the girls go already!/ he sent back, now more confused than ever.

The Master rubbed his hand over his eyes. He could not fathom what had gotten into his other self. That wanker had everything, everything, that anyone could ever ask for. He certainly had everything that the Master most desperately wanted. What was he going on about, girls? What girls? It made no sense.

/Just...,/ his voice was tired suddenly. /Go. Just go. Get Susan out of the blast radius and... just… live./ He hung up. He had no expectation that the damnable wanker would actually go, but he doubted that anything he could say would talk him down at this point.

"Oh bloody hell!" Koschei gasped, understanding washing through him. "Adie, what was that about bubbles?" he asked. "Could they be used somehow like a bomb, or to fire the damn weapon?"

"It was one of the first configurations to be abandoned," Adie replied looking confused by the question. "It involves storing the clones in a series of probability bubbles and firing the weapon. It raises the damage output by several orders of magnitude, if I'm recalling it correctly, especially if fired from within a TARDIS. The disadvantage is that it can only be fired at point-blank range. You'd lose the TARDIS as well as its pilot. The only thing it would be good for would be a suicide run."

"Yeah, that's about what I figured," Koschei groaned and Adie's eyebrows rose.

"You think he's making a suicide run? Why? I thought he was all about survival?"

"Yeah, when Rassilon was running the show, sure, but now? I'll bet there would be no way to regenerate from something like that blast, would there?" he asked her, eyes bleak.

"No, but he'd probably also take out that solar system…"she muttered and he frowned in thought.

"Auxiliary scanners on-line," he murmured. "Maybe he's seeing something that we aren't?" Adie leaned over his shoulder as he worked, watching the scans, intent on the data that spooled by and then suddenly jabbed her finger at the screen.

"There, look at that: that's got to be a group of Möbius Loops. That's what he must have been doing earlier; he was breaking them off, so they were clustered by themselves. Why would he do that? That's quite a piece of engineering to be able to pull that set together like that," she marvelled.

"No one ever said I wasn't a brilliant engineer, Adie," he mused aloud, his hands teasing more data from the scans. "Let's see more detail."

"That must be where he is planning to set off the Lens. If he wants to kill himself, fine, but why do all this? Why fire the Lens and why here, next to those Loops?"

"What's inside of them?" he asked, running a spectral analysis on the bubbles. "Why now? I told him about Susan long before this, what's he thinking?" The first streams of information started to come in and he frowned. "That's weird," he muttered. "Bio-metals?" He felt his hearts stuttering as the data poured across his screens.

"These scans are very odd," Adie told him with a shake of her head. "Look at this! What is that? Have you ever seen anything like these before?" She was staring at the information, looking perplexed, but he was trying not to hyperventilate.

"Yes, actually," he moaned and leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling his age in a way he almost never did. "I have seen it before…in the Rani's lab."

* * *

Crab puffs, Jake decided, get old fast. In fact, two weeks of a steady diet could make a person really start to dislike crab in general. They had another week to go before the next bridge appeared and Jake was trying to figure out how to entertain five Mashas and keep them from worrying too much. Madison wasn't that hard, she was tough, no-nonsense, and direct. Give her an objective and she'd take it, no questions asked. London and Kayla though, they were thinkers and that meant more work for him. Kimberly just needed a lot of reassurance.

"Are you sure it'll be there?" she was asking him and he showed her Adie's schedule again on the notepad.

"See, it's right there," he promised. "Adie hasn't failed me yet."

Adie was taking on mythical proportions for them all. They'd all been cloned from her and she was a Time Lord who'd actually stayed in captivity for a hundred years just to protect them. Adie was a name he could invoke to keep them all calm.

"Okay, if Adie says so," Kimberly agreed and Jake smiled at her. He wasn't sure how Adie was going to feel about this when they got back someday, but he also couldn't exactly warn her.

* * *

"He's certainly making a mess, isn't he?" the Doctor muttered and Susan just nodded, still stunned by it all.

She had never imagined that the Master would be so reluctant to talk to her that he'd do something like this. Calling the Vortex a "mess" was being charitable. He had thrown up all sorts of barriers in their path - Möbius Spheres, Time Loop fields, Snap Mines, Artron Bursts, and other goodies. Their TARDIS was still in pursuit of his, but was having to fly carefully to avoid the obstacles. The Master was trying to shake them off but hadn't managed it yet.

But why? She was utterly baffled by his actions. They needed each other, that's how it always was, so why was he doing this? Why go to such lengths? Did he not want to see her? That thought hurt. Maybe this version didn't love her, didn't want to be with her. She hid the hurt of that deep, away from Koschei.

"Fine," she muttered. "If that's how it is, well fine, but he's going to have to say it to my face."

She was so deep in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the concerned looks that Rose and her grandfather exchanged.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Snow Blind

Koschei frowned at the screen, thinking hard. The Master was going to do something impossibly noble and stupid and it was going to make Susan really upset. He still wasn't quite sure how he felt about having two of himself around the place, but he knew one thing, any harm coming to either of them would make Susan miserable. No matter why he was doing this, she would spend eternity convinced it was her fault, that she'd driven him away to his death somehow.

"Right, none of this then," he growled and re-established contact. /You break her hearts, you wanker, by dying on her, and I will follow you to the other side just to kick your skinny arse!/ he sent with a feeling of savagery that he knew came from his own conflicted emotions.

/What are you on about? Why would you tell her about.../ The thought broke off suddenly. Immediately following: /That was not what I meant to do!/

* * *

"Damn it all!" the Master cursed. The other version of him had interrupted his concentration at a critical moment.

He'd been designing Möbius Loops and Time Loops and spitting out the occasional Snap Mine or Chrono-strand cluster. He was doing this all, literally, on the fly, while at the same time taking extreme manoeuvres like steering his own ship into the worst patches of lightning, knowing that the pursuing TARDIS would have to go around them, since it lacked his heavy shielding.

He'd been careful not to cluster anything too tightly, as he didn't want Susan to be hurt; but he had to get them to stop soon, or they'd be too close when he set off the Lens.

The interruption made him mistype a single digit on a Time Loop calculation. He didn't catch it in time and it opened up too close to a Möbius Sphere. He watched in frozen horror, knowing it was already too late to stop it.

The implosion was immediate and spectacular.

* * *

"Bloody hell!" Rose screamed as a giant hand seemed to grab the TARDIS and shake them around. They were rebounding off of a misplaced chunk of time.

"There!" Susan shouted, pointing to where the Master's TARDIS was trying desperately to slingshot out of the effects of the field.

"Omega!" the Doctor breathed, hoping against hope as the other TARDIS almost made it, but after a timeless moment of stillness, his ship also was caught in the whirlpool. and sucked down.

Susan had time to feel a moment of horror and fear before they hit the Trans-Möbius Barrier. The laws of physics snapped, the probability matrix was tossed aside and for a instant, causal effect failed completely. The TARDIS disintegrated the moment it touched the barrier, destroyed down to the last atom; only to be remade on the other side, almost exactly as it had been before.

Each member of the crew suffered the same fate; a flash of brilliant light, and then being somewhere else. Somewhere, unfortunately, other than inside of the TARDIS. They were nearly exactly as they had been before, but not exactly where they had started out.

They were falling, to be specific. Now inside the Möbius Loop closest to the implosion, they were falling above a white, snowy world, with howling storms and raging winds; and above all, a terrible and bitter cold.

The TARDIS fell like a meteor, trailing fire and gas behind it, lighting up the sky, flashing as it tumbled, until it impacted below, sending up a plume of steam and mud. The Trans-Möbius barrier had shorted her systems and drained her power and she lay in her crater, steaming, as the snow fell around her and melted from the heat of her re-entry.

The Time Lords also fell like stones, but more slowly. The reconstruction process took several seconds, and luckily it did so; for while they remained in the shimmering field of passage, they didn't pick up too much momentum. The field didn't dissipate until they were nearly at the ground, and then they were flung in every direction.

* * *

Möbius Loop Five: Dolce Nocturum

Dolce Nocturum had once been a thriving colony. It was still possible to see its domes glittering in the perpetual moonlight cast by no less than seven brilliant moons. This now was the realm of the Kza, thick, armoured, and green; they roamed through the shattered hallways and over the pitted grey surface alone. There was nothing left on this moon to challenge them.

In the space above the moon, a new star formed, rapidly growing larger until it became apparent that it wasn't a star at all. It was a gleaming, glowing spot of energy, space bending outwards away from it, like a bubble.

It took several hours for the bubble to burst: in its centre was a raw and gaping hole. It took additional time for this hole to grow large enough to allow the first insect through, a chunky beetle the size of a silver dollar. It moved in a slow, leisurely manner. Every time it flapped its wings, there was a spark generated at its wing-tips; and this generated sufficient propulsion to move it forwards. Another beetle emerged from behind it, and a third from behind those, each moving out of the way of the next in line, drifting lazily towards the nearby moon.

Landing upon a rock, the beetle turned around in several circles, then took an experimental bite. Its pincers easily carved off a chunk the size of a pea, which it consumed quickly. All around it, other beetles landed and began doing the same thing.

After eating several stones about as large as itself, it began to flap its wings restlessly, hopping from point to point, seeming to be disturbed. Finally it landed some five feet away from where it started and crouched, buzzing angrily.

A crack appeared down the centre of its fat body, glowing. The beetle buzzed for a moment or two more, made a couple of uncertain hops at random angles. There was a brief flash, and then it simply stepped away from itself. Two identical beetles stood in its place, seeming to be stunned for a moment, before flying off in opposite directions and taking bites of new stones.

All around them, the other beetles were doing the same thing. The silent flashes were quite lovely to look at from a distance, but weren't visible for long, as the beetles quickly burrowed themselves an impressive crater.

The luckless Kza that discovered the crater, two hours later, made the mistake of poking its snout over the edge. Instantly covered, it went down in just under three minutes as it was devoured whole. A gigantic mound of new beetles marked the spot where it had fallen. Other Kza, attracted by the commotion, came to investigate, and the swarm rose in its full fury.

For nearly a full day the battle raged green and silver and silent, until there was no more green, and the moon was grey with puddles and pools of silver beetles stretched as far as the eye could see.

Two hours later, there was no more moon. A series of disconnected chunks of rock floated in its place, growing smaller and smaller under the swarms of beetles that coated them, flashing and sparkling in the darkness.

At length, the swarm rose, in countless trillions, and headed lazily towards the next moon.

Of the first moon, there was nothing left, not even a pebble the size of a pea.

Time of Takeover: 24 hours

* * *

Jake waved the Mashas forward, and then dropped down as Madison leapt out and slashed the crab with her knives. London whirled into action, moving almost too fast to see, while Kimberly fired down with pinpoint precision into the grouping. Kayla watched their back and Diana popped up on the other side, setting up a withering crossfire that took out what was left of them.

"Didn't need me at all," Jake chuckled.

"Of course we need you! You're here for… let's call it, 'morale duty,'" Diana teased him and he laughed.

"Perfectly happy to be so," he told them and came down to join them.

"3-2-1...," Madison counted down and the bridge appeared. It looked like a tunnel of light that just appeared from nowhere, shimmering in a rainbow of hues that made his head ache a bit if he stared at it too long.

The group of them ran for the bridge and the now familiar sensation of being sucked through a pipe came over him.

"Whooo!" Diana screamed happily, while Kimberly screeched and the others shouted. Jake just grinned.

The Revolution was on the move.

* * *

Rose plummeted, feeling herself being put back together molecule by molecule, even as she saw the ground starting to rush towards her. She tried to scream but her body was still only partially assembled and no sound came out.

The ground below her was solid white and she inside the white, feeling nothing one moment and then suddenly cold, wet, and terrified the next. She thrashed in the enclosed darkness before she got control of herself and forced herself to be calm.

She was encased in the snow and she had no idea how far away the surface was.

* * *

The Doctor had the impression of a shining white thing and then he landed on something hard and bitterly cold. There was a brief moment where his world was filled with a horrible grinding and cracking noise and then the surface beneath him shattered and he was dumped into blackness and cold.

The bitter chill penetrated like a thousand knives. He clamped his mouth shut, holding his breath by instinct, but his lungs felt like they were on fire already. His clothes turned into weights that were pulling him down, his ears registered pressure, and his body was growing numb, his vision coming in a series of flashing vignettes.

He struck upwards towards the light above him, fighting the weight of his clothes and the terrible lassitude that was coming over him, and finally broke the surface, gasping and sputtering. He took in deep icy lungfuls, trading one pain for another and then dragged himself onto the ice and lay still a moment, coughing up water, before his cold-numbed brain finally fathomed that he really needed to get off of the ice and out of the cold air.

He was freezing.

* * *

Koschei tumbled through the air, feeling snow moving through his body in its half-assembled state. Far below he saw streaks of black, white, and grey, but could make no sense of any of it, he finally came together about ten feet above the ground, with just enough time to feel the bitter cold, before a heavy wind rose up and smashed him into the ground.

He lay in a snow bank, gasping for breath, his hearts hammering madly, and new bruises joining the ones he'd gotten in the TARDIS. He was barefoot, with only a jumper and jeans on, and the cold was seeping into his clothes. He coughed and forced himself off of the snow with trembling arms, his hands sinking into the powder with a crunch as he pushed himself up.

When he finally staggered to his feet, he looked about, trying to figure out where he was. There was something wrong with the world, it moved in a strange jerky way, time folding back in on itself. He blinked and realized that they had fallen into one of the Loops.

He turned his head, catching sight of huge spars rising from the snow. They looked at first like the bones of some great beast, but he blinked and they resolved themselves into more familiar forms. He was near a half constructed building. It was long abandoned and now only a series of girders, angled crazily, as if they had been knocked about by giants, was all that remained.

There were the remains of a work site around him, but as he turned, he realized that he was the only living thing for miles around. The wind was whipping through the site, screaming down from the nearby mountains. Gouged out ravines and tumbling foothills stretched out from where he stood, but no signs of cities, or craft of any type.

He was alone in a wasteland of ice and snow.

* * *

Susan tumbled through the air, arms wind-milling, and saw the ravine rushing up towards her. She materialized completely and felt gravity reaching for her. She threw her arms out desperately for something to slow her fall and grabbed at a blackened branch that stuck out of the wall.

She clutched it tightly, her arms nearly yanked from their sockets from the strain of stopping her fall. She looked around frantically as the branch creaked and spotted a ledge below her. With more haste than grace, she leapt at the wall of the ravine, nearly bouncing off again, but managing to cling like a limpet to the surface, her feet seeking the ledge.

She wedged herself against the cliff wall, the ledge giving her some purchase, but the winds that blew through the canyon were growing stronger and her bathrobe was fluttering around her legs. A storm was howling and shrieking, and the ledge was narrow and gave her far too clear a view of the yawning chasm below her.

She took a breath, forcing herself to be calm and reached out to her husband, their link humming between them.

/Koschei?/ she called.

/Where are you?/ he asked.

/A tiny narrow ledge over a precipice./

/Hold on, love, I'm on my way,/ he sent back.

/Please be quick, love. There aren't a lot of handholds and the wind is really picking up./ She tried to hide her nervousness from him, but failed, and could sense his own rising alarm. /Plus, I'm in my jim-jams and a robe!/

/I'll hurry!/

He withdrew slightly, so that he could concentrate on running and she squished herself back against the cliff face, thinking heavy, rock-like thoughts. She was not going to get blown off this damn ledge and then try to regenerate in the middle of a howling blizzard. That would be a horrible idea.

* * *

They found the next Masha in the middle of a war zone. She was huddled under a table while bullets whizzed by and bombs blew up around her.

"Under here!" she called. "It's safe." They all crawled under and Jake looked around.

"You're sure?" he asked and the girl nodded.

"I've been here for more than a century and this desk never gets blown up," she assured him and they all settled down to wait. "Reset will be up in about a minute."

Diana-37 nodded and crossed her arms, waiting.

A minute later, the damage vanished. Everything, the bodies, the fires, it was all gone and the building was even back in one piece.

"I am never gonna get used to that," Jake muttered.

"Who are you, anyway?" the new girl asked. "Why do you all look like me?"

"I'm Diana-37" she replied and showed her palm. The other girl blinked and raised her own hand.

"74," she whispered and looked stunned.

"This is London-11, Madison-17, Kimberly-21, Kayla-8, and Jake-77. We're here to break you out. We're having a revolution," she announced. 74's eyes widened and she stared at them in shock.

"We can do that?" she asked in a wail. "Why didn't anybody tell me that?"

* * *

The Doctor coughed out gushes of icy cold water. His Time Lord biology was already working to warm him up and heal him, but he wasn't feeling particularly marvellous just then.

"I need to get off this ice," he groaned and pulled his sonic, scanning for the thickest parts of it and then edging in that direction. He reached for Rose's mind and could barely feel her, so she was either unconscious or out of range. This wasn't good at all.

He scrambled across the ice and onto the snowy ground, wondering how he was going to get them all out of this one.

* * *

Koschei turned until he could feel the direction Susan was in and then took off running. She was trying hard to keep her fear in check, but he could sense how scared she was.

"I'm coming, love, and hold on," he whispered to the icy air and ran faster, his bare feet sinking into the snow, his toes already going numb.

* * *

Rose closed her eyes and let herself feel the turning of this world. It jerked and shuddered under her, but she finally managed to track it properly. Now that she could feel the direction of gravity clearly, she pushed herself up through the snow, burrowing like a mole, kicking snow down and digging her way upwards. She was cold, tired, sore, bruised, and worried sick about the Doctor. She was digging from sheer bloody minded stubbornness, feeling like a worm in the dirty snow.

Most of all, she was thinking of her children. Jenny and Jamie's faces were there before her and she struggled towards them.

"I won't die on you," she promised. "I won't leave you alone." She was trying to warm herself, forcing her hearts to beat faster and keep her blood circulating. It was a damn good thing she was a Time Lord now, she decided, because otherwise she'd be rapidly turning into a Popsicle.

* * *

Susan's TARDIS lay in its crater, the systems down, it's corridors silent, dark, and cold.

In the lab, fifteen tiny Time Lord Infants, too young to survive on their own, began to go into cardiac distress as the machines that kept them alive had stilled.

Automatic systems tried to come on-line, but the TARDIS was too badly damaged, despite her best efforts.

Alarms wailed in the medi-bay and K-9 roused from his recharging phase and lifted his head, ears swivelling as he went into action.

"Mistress Susan? Master Koschei?" he called, but his sensors found no one on board. He had no guidance, and so he fell back on his standing orders from his Mistress.

He ran for the lab, to save the babies.

* * *

Martine-74 darted across the shattered concrete and then leapt from the collapsed freeway down to where a cluster of Thrax were patrolling. She lashed out with a foot, while firing at another and grinned as the rest of the revolution arrived a moment later.

All her life Martine-74 had been alone. She'd been made, programmed, and then dumped into a loop of time. A Loop that was precisely twenty-three minutes long. It was a fragment of a war and the only people she'd had to interact with, would forget her again, once those twenty-three minutes were up.

Now she had five sisters and one brother who didn't forget her. She had a name, a purpose, and the one thing she'd needed most of all.

Hope.

* * *

The construction site still had wreckage and machinery lying about that Koschei had to dodge. He was scared to venture too close to any of it, fearful he could slice open one of his bare feet on a submerged piece of wreckage. There were more angled, random beams around that he had to navigate as he ran for Susan.

Of secondary concern, once she was safe, was the temperature. It was at least ten below zero and the wind chill factor made it even worse; and everyone was wearing what they had been wearing when the alarms had roused them, and that was it. He didn't know where the TARDIS was and he knew that once he'd gotten to Susan, they would still need to seek out shelter. He struggled up an icy slope, slipping and stumbling as he went, slapping his hands against his arms, trying to stay warm.

Once over the hill, the cliff became visible. Susan was very far beneath him.

The ledge upon which Susan found herself perched at least had the advantage of being rock-solid. It was also frozen and dripping icicles, as was the cliff above her. And there was no shelter from falling debris: if Koschei dislodged the wrong pebble, it could split her skull.

* * *

Rose felt her fingers breaking through the surface of the snow and sighed. She could feel the terrible power of the wind and while she was wearing jeans, trainers, and her jacket, she didn't exactly have a parka on. She pulled her hand back and watched as snow blew in to fill it up instantly.

"Bloody hell," she muttered. If she stayed down here, she'd be warmer, but the snow would keep falling and burying her deeper and deeper. She would, even with her lovely Time Lord respiratory system, run out of air.

"Well, Allons-y, as he likes to say."

She pushed out of her hole and stood up, the full force of the wind nearly knocking her down. She frowned grimly and reached out for the other Time Lords. She couldn't quite reach her husband, but the shining golden cord that stretched between them was like a shimmering bit of thread that she could follow home.

* * *

K-9 accessed the TARDIS and routed all available power, what little there was of it, to the infants in the medi-bay, shutting off everything else, even life support, to ensure that the tiny section of the ship in which the jars were housed had full power, heat, and all other necessary resources. The control room was black as pitch, as all the lights were out; but medi-bay was running at about forty-eight percent power, with all supporting equipment on-line.

K-9 stabilized the infants and then went into the hallway, whining softly. He swept his head back and forth, red eyes shining in the darkness and then trotted towards the console room. He was alone in the TARDIS and things were in poor shape. He needed to get more power or the babies would soon cease to function.

* * *

Susan looked up at Koschei and he stood there a long moment, looking down the cliff face at her, his mind stuttering, as he tried to think through his desperation and panic.

Construction site. Construction site! The mind that had conceived a thousand plans for domination and destruction raced, as he turned back and looked carefully at the discarded equipment. There! A Tapezian Construction Drone! He dashed to it and flung open the cabin door, only to stare around in dismay. It was half gutted, rotting, and falling apart. He looked around and saw another and then, farther away, two more.

/Hold on, my love, I may have to build a Drone from parts here./ he told her and her laughter bubbled in his mind.

/My brilliant, amazing man. I adore you,/ she sent back, pouring her love of him, her absolute faith in him, into his mind. /I'll stay put, you go be a stone cold genius./ She was relaxing, panic receding, as her trust in him overrode her fear. He found himself standing in the middle of an incipient blizzard barefoot in jeans and a jumper, with no laser screwdriver, rebuilding a Drone from the parts of all the others, while feeling strangely calm. Her faith in him steadied him, centred him somehow. They slipped into gestalt without thinking, putting their minds together to save them both.

* * *

Miles away, the Doctor looked up. He could feel them out there, like twin stars shining out and he grinned. He took a breath and let it out. He'd made it off the ice and now he looked down to where his marriage bond trailed away from him. With a soft smile, he began slogging in the direction of this wife.

He was half-frozen, his eyelashes iced, his fingers blue, his trainers blocks of ice on his feet, but he had a warm golden light guiding him unerringly towards the one place in all the universes that he most wanted to be; next to Rose.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Frozen World

Rose felt the cold bite of the wind and grimaced. She was plodding through miles and miles of white and grey. She stepped down and her foot crunched on something. She refocused her eyes and stared at the thing buried in the snow for a long while, trying to make sense of it. It snapped into focus suddenly and she jumped back in horror, a scream tearing out of her throat.

It was a withered arm, sticking up through the snow, hands still curled, as though it was reaching for her.

She turned her head and realized that all the lumpy grey patterns around her were the outlines of bodies, hundreds of them, lying dead in the pristine whiteness of the snow. She stood there, frozen by more than the cold, for a long time, afraid to move.

When she did take a step, the horrible crunching made her feel ill. She was wading through the dead, all alone, freezing cold, and wondering where the hell they were and how they were going to escape.

* * *

Sophie-24 climbed up onto the huge hairy back of the Efapan, then reached back to Tella-19, pulling her up as well. She watched Jake-77 and Diana-37 mounting another one just ahead, while London-11, Madison- 17, and Kayla-8, shared a third.

The Efapan snorted and shook its shaggy head and she clicked her tongue to get it to move forwards.

Kimberly-21 and Martine-74 were on the ground, scouting alongside the slow moving Efapan. Very little in this Loop could take on an Efapan and live, as slow and generally placid as they were, if they were forced to fight, they could trample most other creatures under their massive hooves.

"How much farther to the Bridge?" Tella-19 asked her.

"Another two days ride and then it'll be three more before it opens," Sophie-24 replied absently. She was scanning the area for any signs of the Howdads. Long, sleek, and deadly, they were the only real predators the Efapan were in danger from and Sophie did not want to have to walk across the Waste, if she could ride.

"What happens next?" Tella-19's nervous question reminded her that for all her low number, 19 was relatively young. She's been run off as a replacement just days before they'd been sealed into the Loops and had far less experience than the others did.

"Right, well, I have nineteen days in my Loop," Sophie-24 explained. "I also have most of this continent, so it's a bit harder to predict. With that much time, events can shift and change. People can change their minds, decide not to bomb one area, or choose to attack another. Luckily, the Wastes don't have much that either side wants, so it's really rare that anything happens here. It's why I like being near it."

"I had two and a half days in mine and only seven square miles," Tella-19 admitted and Sophie-24 hid her wince. No wonder the girl was so shy. If your longest relationship was two and half days then you didn't have much to go on.

"Soon we'll have a lot more space and a lot more time," Sophie-24 assured her sister and Tella-19 nodded, though she looked rather nervous about that prospect.

If she thought too hard about it, Sophie-24 was nervous about it as well. She was really good at nineteen-day friendships, but she wasn't sure how'd she'd do past day twenty. She looked back at Tella-19, realizing that with the other Mashas and Jake; she'd finally have a chance to find out.

* * *

There were parts everywhere, more than enough for the construction. Koschei was sure he could do this with little problem, and then, as he was digging around for a particular gear, he found the first frozen human skull.

It had been here for years, possibly centuries. It was black and grotesque and sort of mummified. But now that he was looking around, there were others, hands, heads, legs... human bodies buried in the snow. He was standing in the middle of a field of slaughter, ancient though it was. The parts were there, buried all around him, but digging them out was going to be bad.

* * *

The Doctor topped a rise and looked down into a field of snow and saw his wife, tiptoeing through it.

/Rose?/ he sent and her head came up instantly.

/Doctor!/ she cried and he ran forwards, slipping and tumbling down the slope and fetching up on the bottom with a small lump on his head.

"Doctor!" Rose cried and fell on him, kissing him frantically. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, so glad to see her that it took him a while to realize what he was lying on top of.

"Bloody hell!" he shouted and jumped to his feet, pulling her up after him.

"Yeah, welcome to a Wes Craven movie set," she grumbled and he looked at her, not having a really clever comeback just then.

* * *

Adie woke slowly, her head aching. She rolled over and saw her blood on a rock near her head. She felt her skull and winced as her cranium informed her that it was not happy with her.

She sat up and looked at herself. She was wearing a nightshirt and matching pyjama pants, but had lost her carpet slippers. For some reason that annoyed her. She'd really liked the carpet slippers, she'd never had any before and ... her thoughts trailed off.

Head injury, she realized. She had a mild concussion.

She pulled herself to her feet, using a chunk of wreckage. She turned slowly, feeling sick and a bit dizzy and realized that there was a crashed spaceship here, in among a field of debris. It was almost cut in half, but there was a large enough section of wall to reduce the wind. Even better, among the field of debris were scattered old fuel barrels.

The field was horrifying. She tried not to look at the bodies in the snow. But she found an old rusted saw blade, some tools, and a welding torch. The barrels weighed more than she did, but with a great deal of effort she could roll them around.

It was tenzonite, which was slow burning and gave off warmth without pumping out much in the way of toxic fumes. Had it been any other fuel, setting the barrel on fire would have merely resulted in a rather crispy Adie and a nice exothermic reaction, but she had worked with tenzonite back on the station, so she knew how to handle it.

She rolled them as far as she could, then cut the tops off, and set them ablaze. She was trying to place them around the old wrecked shuttle, hoping that someone would see the light.

Once lit, she went back to scrounging around the area, coming up with an old tarpaulin: she wrestled with this, trying to tie it against the wind, hoping that maybe she could enclose a bit more of the shuttle off. When she was done, she planned to bring another barrel inside and light it for warmth.

She just hoped someone would spot her bonfires, because all she could see was a flat lake bed far off across the snowy wastes and the mountains behind her. Other than that, this world was empty and dead.

* * *

Masha-20 looked up as she saw the impossible coming towards her. She'd been in this Loop for so long that everything in it was intimately familiar to her. She knew every face, every square inch of it. She had a seventeen hour block of hell that was home to her.

Now, she was staring at strangers. Strangers that looked like her, which was, of course, utterly impossible.

"I'm Diana-37," announced one of the strangers and Masha-20 was wondering if her mind had cracked and if she was now delusional.

"I'm... 20," she finally said and the apparitions all grinned at her.

"We're having a revolution," Diana-37 told her. "Wanna join?"

20 looked around at the seventeen hours and five square miles that had always been her home and felt a sliver of fear. This place, terrible as it was, was all she'd ever known. She looked up and saw the looks of understanding, of sympathy, and compassion, in the faces of the girls that all looked like herself and she found herself nodding.

"Please," she murmured. "There has to be more to it than this." Diana-37 extended a hand to her and she took it. "Do I get a name to?" she asked suddenly.

"You can have any name you like!" Diana-37 told her and feeling shy and out of her depths, 20 twisted a lock of her brown hair around her finger.

"Sasha," she murmured as they walked away. She didn't tell them it was the name of one of the soldier's dogs. She thought that they might laugh, but, she really loved that dog. No matter how many times it died, it was always happy to see her.

* * *

Koschei took a deep breath and tried not to think about the War. The Dalek slaves had once been sentient beings and they'd been turned into mindless puppets and sent to kill. They were considered disposable and unimportant to the Daleks and had been thrown at the Time Lords and their allies as though they were chaff.

He'd waded through charnel houses, time and again, during the War, but he'd had Darginian at his back to trade quips with him, to make some sick, twisted joke in the midst of hell, which would pull him back and make him laugh again. Now, he was alone here in the snow. Only the warm, loving glow of Susan's mind to keep him company.

Paradoxically, he both desperately wished she were here with him and was deeply grateful she was spared the sight. He'd carefully kept the details of his efforts away from her, protecting her against the enemy that all doctors fought with every particle of their being.

The drone was a lumpy sphere with two pincher arms sticking out of the sides of it. It was ugly, graceless, and falling apart, but he found himself patting it lovingly. To him, it was a beautiful sight.

/I've got it,/ he told her finally and she sent him a kiss on the wind.

/I never doubted,/ she assured him and he smiled.

The wind was picking up, so he got himself into the Drone's cab and kicked it into life. It rose, hovered, fell, and then rose again, it was unsteady and the engines would probably not last more than an hour, but he didn't need more than ten minutes.

He flew the rickety, pieced-together, Frankenstein's monster of a Drone out over the chasm and eased down the cliff wall until he was hovering beside his wife. He popped open the cab's door and smiled.

"Hey gorgeous, need a ride?" he called and she leapt lightly into the Drone's interior.

"Going my way, soldier?" she teased back, though her chattering teeth and blue tinged lips worried him.

"Always," he told her and piloted them in a crazy zigzag back up to the construction site.

"Come here, lover, let me get you warmed up," she told him and he laughed.

"Alone at last, wife, just had to crash land in a wasteland to get some privacy," he chuckled and held her against him, deeply glad that she was still alive and he had her back in his arms.

"Whatever it takes," she chortled and kissed him. "We need clothes and then we need to find Grandfather, Rose, and Adie," she reminded him.

"And the Master, I think he fell into here too," Koschei sighed and Susan nodded.

"Grandfather, Rose, Adie, and then the Master," she agreed.

* * *

Jake leapt from the horse and grabbed a hold of the Dragon's neck. Diana-37 growled as she watched him. It was stupidly dangerous, but the damn thing was trying to eat Cassidy-9 and she could see that he didn't have many options. He kicked the dragon in the throat, which was a rather large target, she mused, and it gagged, spitting the girl out.

"I just washed my hair, too!" Cassidy-9 grumbled and brought the sword around, slicing the dragon's foreleg, while Jake leaped clear. Nikki-69 ran under the beast's belly and drove her spear up into the soft underbelly with a grunt of effort.

Sky-52 and London-11 were circling it, while the rest of the sisters were keeping it penned in the area, using spears and swords to prevent it from escaping.

Madison-17 charged in, waving the battle-axe she'd taken off of that tribal chieftain, and with a deadly swing, she neatly decapitated the beast.

The sisters and Jake all ran back away as the giant lizard began to thrash and scream for long moments before it finally died.

"Looks like soup!" Cassidy-9 called and they all moved forward to help.

* * *

It occurred to Adie, suddenly, that the other Time Lords might be able to hear her

/Everyone,/ she sent out to them. /I found a shuttle. It's not much, but it's something, I've lit fires all around, can you find it?/

Koschei and Susan replied instantly, very much relieved.

The Doctor and Rose replied as well, their minds both filled with the cold and the distress they were feeling from all of the dead bodies.

/I'm… sorry,/ Adie sent to the Doctor and Rose. /The Loops were designed for the Mashas, it was never meant for Time Lords to have to.../ but she had to break off. She didn't know how to continue.

/ No one should have to endure this,/ the Doctor sent back, his mind filled with sorrow.

/I know,/ she whispered.

* * *

The Master groggily shook his head and wondered why the world was pitching and swaying. Blinking, he looked around, trying to determine where he was… and then froze.

He was lying on an ice floe, pitching and yawing as the frigid water tumbled through the frozen wasteland around him. He could hear a terrible rumbling noise and looking ahead could see where the river fell off the edge of the world. A waterfall. He felt for his laser screwdriver, but it was gone, no doubt thrown clear when they had crashed.

He clung to the ice chunk, knowing that the water would kill him much faster than the freezing ice he was on. A huge rock reared up and he realized that there was no way the chunk of ice would avoid it. With a muttered curse, he plunged off the floe and into the river. The cold was awful, like being flayed alive. He gasped and struggled in the water, wondering what was going to kill him first, the cold or smacking into one of the rocks that littered the river.

The ice floe crashed into the rock and shattered and he was trying to swim against the terrible strength of the river, being tossed about like a leaf, until he was flung out into the void, and found himself falling, with a vast weight of water coming down on top of him.

He was plunged into a deep pool at the bottom of the waterfall and the force of the impact stunned him a moment, before he recovered. He kicked frantically, breaking the surface with a gasp, choking up water, and feeling like he'd been beaten from head to toe. Down here, the current was much weaker. He struggled against the pull of it, fighting the way the cold was sucking the warmth and life from him, and crawled onto an icy, frozen bank. He pulled himself up onto shore, tiny hard pebbles slipping and scraping his hands and knees until he was out of the water completely. He coughed up more water, feeling as though he'd swallowed half the river, and then he flopped over, coughing, and soaked to the skin.

As he lay panting he realized that he could dimly sense his other self in the area, which meant that it was likely Susan was around somewhere, and that put her in the blast radius.

"Damn it all! Keep Susan out of the blast radius, how hard was that?" He snarled, pounding his fist on the hard packed ground.

Susan's presence here scrapped everything, the Lens, all of it. He was going to have to think of a plan B, and he was going to have to think of it soon, because by the time he found his TARDIS, he was going to have to have it in place. Cursing to himself, he got up and headed out, leaving icy footprints in his wake.

* * *

Adie looked around and pondered their situation. It sounded like it would take the Doctor and Rose a while to arrive. It also sounded like Koschei and Susan had found a way to travel and keep a bit warmer.

She pulled a barrel into the shelter and cut the top off, and lit it.

She hoped the area was enclosed enough to heat up a little soon. She looked at the few tools and things that she had gathered. There was a small pile of screws and some screwdrivers, a hammer, and some tins that might have held food at some point, but that she was now melting snow in. It wasn't much, but it was more than she had had before.

Beyond shelter, their most pressing need was dry clothes. The clothes to be found around the barrels were... not suitable for use, but there was stuff all around here, junk, bits and pieces of crashed ships... maybe she could find something suitable so that everyone didn't freeze. Searching was going to be grotesque, but it had to be done. They were going to lose people if they couldn't get warm. Maybe she could use the screws, drive them into the wall and hang fabric up, insulating them even more.

Then she paused. Something gleamed between two consoles. A disk?

One of the things Adie had found, while searching through the wreckage, was a portable player and a battery with enough charge to run it.

Curious, she inserted the disk and pressed "play."

"Omega!" she whispered.

* * *

Diana-37 stood over the body of the fallen warrior; his spear still clutched in her hand, and looked around at the other warriors of the tribe.

"Who's next?" she dared them all, her voice calm and her smile utterly feral, and they all stepped back, looking at her with mingled respect and terror.

"You have defeated our Champion, Diana of the Amazons," the wizened old Shaman announced and the other tribe members, in their feathered armbands and kilts nodded at her.

"Does she get a prize?" Kimberly-21 asked Jake in an undertone and he shrugged.

"Hopefully, they'll leave us alone as we cross the area," he replied.

"At least until reset and then we'll have to do it all over again," London-11 grumbled.

"Reset here isn't for another week," Kayla-8 reminded them. "Plenty of time to cross."

"As the victor in combat," the Shaman was telling them. "You are now Leader of our tribe!"

"What?" Diana-37 protested. "I just wanted to cross the bloody river!"

"It's only for a week," Kayla-8 pointed out, but Diana-37 glared at them all.

"Let the feasting begin!" the Shaman announced and they all looked around at each other and shrugged.

"Let the feasting being," Madison-17 said with a sudden grin and they all headed towards the centre of the village.

"It's good to be the Queen," Diana-37 announced and looped her arm through Jake's. "Come on Consort, come feed me some fruit."

"As your majesty commands," Jake laughed.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Survival Options

Möbius Loop Seven: USG Cassiopeia

The USG Cassiopeia was the largest ship of her class ever designed. It was a fortress, floating in space, shielded and gunned, designed to invade enemy planets. A long squat shape bristling with weapons, she looked like what she was, a battering ram to be used against enemy fleets.

All of its strengths hadn't saved the crew. The Cklil were highly intelligent and vicious, they weren't above scavenging such a prize from a lesser species. They didn't trust portals, and the first beetles to appear through it were blasted into atoms. After several rounds, beetles stopped coming through.

The portal grew larger, much larger. For a long time nothing came through; and then the beetles came en masse. Invading in uncountable numbers, the weapons of the Cassiopeia knocked gigantic holes in the swarm, but the wall of beetles was so solid that the batteries couldn't punch through.

Behind the small beetles came four massive ones, each half the size of the Cassiopeia itself. Every gun battery swung around, but the large beetles were surprisingly agile for their size, and well behind the smaller beetles.

It was a genuine battle. It didn't take the Cklil long to realize that the larger beetles were commanding the smaller swarms, and they aimed their weaponry appropriately; one of the large beetles took a direct hit, shattering into countless numbers of unintelligent, small beetles. The tide began to turn in the favour of the Cklil.

The three large beetles approached each other, touching their long antennae together. Their forms shifted and merged, and then they were no longer there; in their place was a single, gigantic beetle, dwarfing the Cassiopeia.

Then the wasps came.

The battle lasted fourteen hours and the Cklil fought with all of the viciousness for which their race was famed. In the end, the ruins of the Cassiopeia hung in space, with no further signs of resistance. The beetles munched contentedly on their new prize. The wasps had selected their own chunks of wreckage, and everything was quiet, bright with the sparks of constant divisions, until there wasn't a speck left, and the swarm, now becalmed, moved lazily on.

Time of Takeover: 20 hours

* * *

Koschei grinned down at his wife, they had found supplies in a closed case in the back of the drone. It wasn't much, but it was more than they'd had before.

"You've got her running again?" Susan asked softly and he nodded.

They were dressed in Radiation suits from the cargo area he glanced over at Susan, lips twitching in amusement. It was far too big on her. In her bare feet, she was just tall enough to lay her head against his shoulder, but had to stretch a bit to kiss him, so the suit had the arms and legs rolled up to make it fit. Still, she was swimming in it.

He calculated the distance between them and the Doctor, checking fuel, and hoping the Drone's cobbled together engines could survive the trip. It was a serious question. He looked around and tossed a few broken crates out, to lighten the load, and then, with a quick prayer to whatever gods watched over engineers, he launched the battered and bedamned Drone into the sky.

"Doctor and Rose first and then on to Adie," he murmured.

"I think we ought to call her Bessie 3," Susan told him, patting the bulkhead and, despite the desperate straits they were in, he found himself laughing.

* * *

"So, is this one of the Loops?" Rose asked, shivering beside him as they walked. "And how exactly did we get here, because Malla doing the maths in my head is not actually helping!"

"Oh, you don't need maths for this, just a bloody ounce of intelligence! Sadly, the Master, who I used to think was quite clever, did the absolutely stupidest thing in the history of stupid things, and dropped a Time Loop and a Möbius Sphere next to each other and he damn near tore a hole in the Space Time Continuum! Only the fact that the two TARDIS were there kept it from becoming a complete disaster, but it was still a near thing! I really thought better of him, honestly! He was crazy, sure, but he was never this stupid!" the Doctor was shouting and ranting as they marched.

"I mean, he, of all people should have bloody well known better!" he continued, slapping his arms against himself and dividing his attention between his rant and Rose's lips, which we a bit more blue than he liked.

"So, yeah! We're bloody well on the wrong bloody side of a bloody Loop! Because that absolute moron buggered up the whole bloody thing!" he concluded and decided that the rant had done well at both the tasks he's set for himself, it had relieved his worry a bit, and it had warmed him up.

"And now I want to know where he is, because I am going to tear the hairs out that bloody goatee one at a time!"

"Oi! Me first!" Rose snarked back.

* * *

Scavenging among the dead was horrifying: but it had to be done. Adie looked in lockers and any bit of any ship that might hold supplies. At length, she was rewarded with a couple of old uniforms, with shoes, a first-aid kit, an emergency blanket, and a few other goodies.

/Koschei,/ she sent to him, /Do you think you can pick up the Doctor and Rose? You should be pretty close to them./

/We were already on our way there,/ he told her and Susan reached out and squeezed his hand before releasing it.

He was angling towards the Doctor, following the jagged angry red of his mind, fingers curled around the joystick, hands steady, though his hearts were stuttering in his chest. He wasn't so much piloting, he mused, as doing a series of controlled crashes.

/Grandfather, we're going to try to land near you. Do try not to get crushed./ Susan sent out.

"Remind me not to order the Brontosaurus next time," Cassidy-9 shouted and Diana-37 nodded her agreement.

"Why is it always lizards!" London-11 complained. "Who was the nutter with the giant lizard fetish?"

"One of the Temporal Engineers was probably a Godzilla fan," Jake-77 said as he drew back the bowstring and sighted along the shaft of the arrow. "Me? I liked Hawk-eye." He fired and the arrow sped out and buried itself in the Brontosaurus' eye.

It fell over slowly, it's vast bulk collapsing, like a building coming down.

"Mind you Brontosaurus is pretty tasty," Cassidy-9 told them. "Tastes just like chicken!" She grinned at Diana-37, her hair wild and messy, all the little braids in wild disarray, her clothes ragged and filthy and Diana-37 grinned back.

"Have you actually ever seen a chicken?"

"Well… no, not really." she said with a grin. "Why?"

"Just checking," Diana chuckled.

If nothing else came out of the Revolution, just getting to meet and become friends with all her sisters was still worth everything they were slogging through.

She looked around at the twelve they'd gotten together so far and felt a warm glow in her hearts.

She had family.

* * *

"Bloody hell! Get down!" the Doctor commanded and leaped on top of Rose bearing her to the ground, ending up face first in the snow, as something black and with smoke trailing from it, skidded over their heads and into the snow. It bounced once and then stopped, listing to one side, before a hatch popped out and Susan, ginger hair matted and filthy, dirty face beaming atop a neon yellow plastic suit, waved to them.

"Come on! Get in!" she called and the Doctor bodily lifted Rose from the snow and ran for the Drone.

The inside of the drone was, marginally, warmer than the outside.

Adie turned off the disk.

/Uncle… I believe I have found out why the Master cut off this series of loops./

/ Because he wanted to set up a ski resort and make lots of money? Ski the fields of corpses! See the lovely dead world of wherever-we-bloody-well-are!/ he snarked back, obviously in a foul temper.

/I believe this was… hmmm. I believe this is the location of one of the Rani's, shall we say, overly successful experiments./

/ Because crash landing the TARDIS and getting lost in a bloody blizzard really wasn't exciting enough,/ he grumbled. /I can't believe I ever dated that stroppy cow!/

/You dated the Rani?/

/Absolute nadir of my existence, she dumped me for Koschei, and then dumped him for science./

/Did she try out the drugged lipstick on you?/

/ Naw, this was back at the Academy, when we were really young and really stupid./ he sent back, sounding disgusted. /Really, really, stupid./

Adie paused. She was really very curious to know just how stupid the Doctor had been with the Rani, but it would be impolite to ask.

/Well she and the Master worked a while on a war weapon called the Manifold. When it… proved to be just a bit too effective, it was put away somewhere. I never thought it might have been added to the Möbius Loops, although it makes sense now that I think about it./

/Where else would you keep something stupidly dangerous except for a sealed bundle of Time,/ he agreed.

/No, I wouldn't have put the Manifold in a bundle of anything. I would have locked it up by itself. Cheapskates./ She grumbled.

/So, what are we up against here?/ he asked, his mind sharp and hard.

/Well the goal was to create a life form that could never be defeated. Something that survived no matter what. Something to overrun Dalek worlds. And the Rani… I have to give her credit, I heard she came pretty close./

/Oh well, the Rani, she always did love a survivor,/ he sighed.

/They were based off of insects, bio-metallic insects. I never saw the specifications but from what I recall, there were a number of varieties that performed different functions. If I remember correctly, they were able to merge themselves into larger bugs if they needed additional processing power, they were able to listen into telepathic conversations, they could split apart and become quite tiny if needed… the main thing that I remember is that they were supposed to be able to eat through anything. Anything, up to and including the real-world interface of a TARDIS, to be able to chew their way from the outside to the interior./

/Adie, you just said they could hear telepathy, right?/

/Yes, but I thought there was a proximity factor. Keep an eye out for any silver metallic insects. And Doctor… I found a disk. A disk that you should see./

/Which I can totally watch in the middle of a howling blizzard!/ he snarked back.

/You're the Doctor! Of course you can!/

/ My sonic is frozen, Adie!/ her replied, sounding disgusted. /I'll be along shortly and we can chat, eh?/

/Sounds good. I have fires burning, I'll keep an eye out for some tea./

/Don't tease,/ he chuckled and then withdrew from the conversation.

"This is one jury-rigged monstrosity, Shay," the Doctor told him with an admiring glance.

"Did it without my screwdriver, too," he preened briefly and they laughed together, as they worked to get the wallowing cow back into the air.

"Drives like dead whale," the Doctor complained.

"Smells like one too," Rose murmured from behind them.

* * *

Koschei wasn't at all sure that he could eke out enough power to land in a controlled manner this time, but the other three were all strapped in behind him and the Drone was built to last, so it probably didn't matter too much. He brought it down on its belly and let the ship ski across the snow, allowing friction to slow it to a stop.

He hadn't counted on the submerged bits of bodies and wreckage though and it was less of a slalom and more of roller-coaster before they finally skidded to a stop.

"Now I know how dice feel," the Doctor quipped and Koschei nodded.

They'd made it.

Susan patted the Drone gently as they stepped out of the doorway.

"Thank you," she murmured to it and Koschei took her hand in his.

They stepped out into a field of wreckage. It was mostly in darkness, because night was falling, but with occasional points of light from blazing old barrels. The fire danced and the light cast long misshapen shadows across the snow.

Adie appeared at one end of the downed shuttle, wearing some sort of old greyish uniform, that was ridiculously large on her, as she wasn't much bigger than Susan.

"I've got some temporary shelter set up!" she shouted, or tried to, over the wind, which was picking up like it meant business. "This way!"

The "shelter" was tiny, part of an old shuttle that had been all but cut in half. Adie had tied down a couple of tarpolines over the hole to form a sort of shielded tent, and pulled every barrel she could find nearby, and set it alight. Inside she had found a variety of old things that she had set out; some ancient uniforms of various sorts, including shoes, a few rations, not much else. The barrels made it warm enough to allow everyone to get out of danger of hypothermia or frostbite, but it wasn't anything resembling warm.

Rose raced into the shelter, stomping her feet and warming her hands over the flaming barrel.

"Doctor," Adie said over the wind, "We'll need something more solid shelter-wise!"

She had a point. For now, this little oasis would serve to allow them all a breather, but those tarps were never going to stand up to a real storm, and it was only a matter of time before the fuel in the barrels was exhausted. Adie had tried to put as much of a brave face on things as she could; but the plain fact was that they weren't going to be able to spend the night here, and by the time they all got dressed and warmed up, it was going to be straight-up night time.

"I suspect that underground will be our best bet, Adie, the surface has been scoured clean," the Doctor agreed, staring out at the landscape thoughtfully.

Koschei and Susan both looked up and watched them, alerted by something in his demeanour.

"Worst mistake of my life, dating the Rani, we were at the academy, both rather young. She was utterly brilliant, it's always been a weakness of mine, smart people," he said it with a rueful air, but there was still a tension in him. "She had this crazy notion about breeding a race that could survive anything. She was experimenting all the time, pushing things, taking mad risks. Finally, she was expelled and sent away. Even after they dragged her back, during the War, she kept at it. Half the time she was more hindrance than help to us, but she did make some breakthroughs," he admitted.

"If I could have found a way to kill her, I would have," Susan ground out, face and eyes bleak and angry. "The things they let her do!" she cried and her anguish was jagged and cutting against Adie's mind. Susan tucked it away again, behind her shields, but not before Adie had a brief glimpse of a room, elegant and beautiful, but littered with people, lying on the floor, screaming, as their bodies were being eaten out slowly from the inside by Artron energy, while the Rani stood there, face mildly interested, taking notes. Somehow, Adie knew it had taken days for them to die.

"Susan!" her grandfather scolded, shocked.

"Don't!" Koschei snapped back. "You don't know! I had to stop her time and again from 'experimenting' on our allies! She was dissecting them alive! Trying to see how long they could survive without vital organs!" He shook his head. "I was crazy, narcissistic, and homicidal, but even I was sickened by the things she was doing!" The man who'd once been the Master, shivered, eyes filled up with remembered horror.

"All right, then," the Doctor murmured, his words as much an apology as an acknowledgement. "I missed that and I'm quite glad of that. But, I do remember what she was like and how much she loved a survivor." He looked around at the landscape. "So, let's find some better shelter, shall we?"

Adie looked at the ground.

"She was ultimately successful. When he realized what she had done… I've never seen the Master so angry. He went out to stop her. He hated it; he complained that he felt like the Doctor."

She was silent for a while.

"We couldn't beat them," she said. "We had to lock them up. Here, I think." She shook her head, forcing herself out of her reverie. "If the Manifold are here, and if this Loop is leaking... Omega knows how many people are going to die."

Susan felt the incandescent rage in her gut that the Rani's workings always inspired in her. Koschei twined his fingers through hers, sharing that rage.

"We still need to find shelter than this before the blizzard hits," the Doctor pointed out.

"Where's the Master now, I wonder?" the Doctor muttered again. "Where did he crash down?"

"Maybe he died?" Rose murmured, sounding worried.

"No, he's alive," Susan sighed, looking down at the slender golden cord. "He probably knows more about this place than anyone else. We could use his assistance."

"I'll go scout out the area," the Doctor told them, twirling his sonic in his hand. "It's thawed out now, so should work fine." Rose hugged him before he stepped out into the snow and then she began scouring the interior for warmer clothes and food. The others joined her quickly, but they all worked in silence, without their usual banter.

* * *

"Sixteen," Jake muttered and looked over at the group of Mashas sitting around the campfire. Diana nodded beside him and he could feel her frustration as well.

"Eight months of jogging between Loops," she sighed. "Eight months and we've only got sixteen!"

"I know, Angel, but we can only cross when a bridge is scheduled." He shrugged. Still, it was getting hard to feed the sixteen they'd found. The Brontosaurus in Marissa's Loop had lasted them a couple of weeks, especially when they'd been able to freeze-dry chunks of it in Shevia's frozen Loop.

"When is the Doctor coming?" she sighed.

"Well, according to the count Adie gave me, only two days have passed in the outer Universe," he pointed out and she nodded.

"I know, he's probably running around being brilliant and all, but how long is it going to take us to get the others? How are we going to all stay together, find food, and to survive, all in one Loop?" she asked the questions that he'd been asking himself as well and he shrugged.

"We do what we can, Angel, that's all," he told her and she snuggled against him, head on his chest.

"I know what I want to do," she teased and he grinned into the darkness.

"Let's get further away this time, I don't need to hear their suggestions," he chuckled and Diana grinned and dragged him further into the forest.

Family was nice, but sometimes privacy was needed.

* * *

The Doctor headed into the teeth of the storm. He was looking for shelter, but primarily he was looking to climb a particularly tall metal strut that he had spotted. It might have been an antenna tower at some point in the past. He wanted to get a good look at the area and needed to be as high as possible to do it.

* * *

"Koschei, can you reach K-9 from here?" Susan asked and he shook his head.

"I sent out the recall, but I think he was too far away to hear it," he confessed and she sighed.

"Or, he was too busy to come," she suggested.

"Busy with what? We're freezing out here!" Rose objected.

"The babies," she murmured, a stab of worry going through her. Koschei, Rose, and Adie all froze for a moment and then Koschei touched her shoulder lightly.

"K-9 will take care of them and the systems back-ups I installed were engineered to survive worse than that crash. Even if they went down, K-9 will get them going again," he assured her. "They'll be fine." She nodded, but was still worried. She hated feeling so helpless and ineffectual. She was a doctor, she should be more useful than this.

"Lucky we're all Time Lords," Rose murmured. "I'm glad that Martha wasn't on board, or Donna." She shivered and they all nodded.

"True, Rose. We're all going to get warm and then go sledding, eh?" Koschei teased, but his eyes lacked any humour. None of them was feeling very sanguine about their survival chances just then.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - The Rani's Creations

Outside, the Doctor was climbing the tower determinedly. The wind was threatening to blow him away, but he clung doggedly, even in the teeth of the gale, pointing the sonic screwdriver as if he were a wizard trying to dispel the weather.

He could see the storm now, on the horizon: what they were currently feeling was only the fringes. The readings he was getting from it worried him. When it hit there would be no travelling, and their makeshift shelter would be blown to pieces.

He then turned his attention elsewhere, searching for some sort of shelter. As he searched, something caught his attention. A strange fluctuation in the fabric of space-time. He noted the position of a large crashed ship, before he turned to examine the anomaly more carefully.

He looked at the readouts and his hearts sank like stones.

/Everyone,/ he sent, /Good news and bad news. Good news: there's another ship nearby, a bigger one, if we can get in there, I think we can weather the storm./ He paused, trying to think of a gentle way to say this and failing terribly.

/Bad news is... it's leaking. The Loop is leaking. I can't tell in the storm if they have found the opening or not but.../ He shook her head. /I wouldn't bet against it./ He tried to keep a brave face for them, but it was almost physically painful to relay the message.

The Manifold could break out of the Loop and into the greater universe. Nothing would be safe from them.

* * *

Möbius Loop Six: Kalium Four

The swarm settled into orbit around Kalium Four: and the Rath rose to meet them.

An insect species, they had long ago converted the cities below them to hives. Aggressive and highly territorial, they were accustomed to using their tiny size and countless numbers to overwhelm larger foes. Within minutes the larger members of the Manifold were covered from antennae to wingtip with the tiny hornets, stinging furiously.

They shattered into swarms of silvery insects of about the same size; and it was swarm-on-swarm battle. The stars winked out of sight as the sky filled with clouds of black and silver.

Then came the sound of rain, the sound of hard little bodies striking their own hives, pouring from the skies in streaks of silver and black streaks. For a while, the streaks of black and silver were approximately even; but the rain became darker and darker as drifts began piling up like black snow.

Then the rain was over. The silvery clouds drifted almost peacefully before settling onto the surface like mist, digging through snowdrifts, hives, and buildings, sparkling and glittering as the world wore away underneath them.

Time of Takeover: 10 hours

* * *

/What do we do?/ Adie asked, suddenly feeling very small and frightened.

/We'll burn that bridge when we cross it./ the Doctor's mind touched hers, as he spoke to her, and she could feel the 'flavour' of his mind, the distinct differences between him, Susan, Rose, and Koschei, how each of them was unique and different. The Doctor was ... complicated. Not to say that Susan and Koschei were simple-minded, open folks, but the Doctor... he was layered. It was like there were levels inside of him and they went down deep. He was filled up with secrets, with closed doors, and sharp jagged painful memories that he had chained up, down deep in the darkness.

She was being pulled into a sort of five-way gestalt, though it was nowhere near as deep as what she could feel coming from Susan and Koschei. Even so, her own knowledge was being pooled with the others, as they literally 'put their heads together' to brainstorm.

/I can see the opening,/ Susan added and her greater understanding of their perceptions was added to Adie's and she could see the structure of the tear, like a wound in the flesh of the universe. The maths for it all wound through Rose and Koschei's minds and she could feel them working on the problem. They all were. It was weirdly comforting to feel their calm acceptance and the way they were already thinking about how to solve it, how to save lives.

She was standing in the shelter with Rose, Susan, and Koschei, but she was also with the Doctor, perched on the tower, staring up into the sky.

The Doctor turned back to the tear, and they all studied it with the new vision that the others were providing. The wound was obvious in Susan's vision, and Adie focused her attention on one point.

/That's them. They've found it./

The tear was surrounded by swarms of... something too tiny to perceive very well. They couldn't be much larger than a dime. They were buzzing around it, biting, widening the gap. Tearing into the fabric of time and space was destroying many of the creatures, but they were completely focused on their task, regardless of the casualties.

Rose and Koschei's maths, much of which was quite solid, was finding that other portions had staggering sequence gaps. There was just too much data they didn't have. The Master would undoubtedly have been able to provide this data... but without him, they were doing the best they could.

* * *

The Doctor froze and severed the gestalt link in a hurry.

Perched in front of him, on a bar on the antenna where he clung, was a tiny silvery creature, the size of a fruit wasp. It even looked like a fruit wasp, with dainty silvery wings, an impossibly thin waist, and wings made of silvered fibres. It was staring right at him, its head tilting rhythmically back and forth, back and forth, like a clock or metronome. It was this phenomenon which had caused the Doctor to abruptly 'hang up'.

Was there more than one...? No, it was alone. Just a single, off from its group, and maybe blown off course by this damnable wind. It was too small to have much intelligence on its own.

He held his breath, held his thoughts, even to himself. If it recognized him as a threat ...

The tiny silver wasp stopped bobbing its head abruptly. It stared at him with unreadable compound eyes, and then casually cleaned its antennae, before flitting away into the storm.

The Doctor waited until it was good and gone, nowhere in sight, nothing at all in sight but snow, before unshielding and resuming the connection.

/Bugger, one was just in front of me, but it left,/ he sighed out.

/Fabulous,/ Koschei retorted with a sigh. / Theta, have you found shelter? We need to get somewhere safe. /

/Yes, South, straight south, about a half a mile,/ he informed them as he pocketed the screwdriver. /All right, I am heading to the ship, home in on me. There's a storm kicking up, so hurry./

The Doctor carefully climbed down the antenna, and then headed towards the ship.

It had the squared blocky design of 35th century Earth and it reminded him of a lost colony story he remembered hearing. He shook his head and put that aside for later. Survival first, he decided.

It had indeed crashed, leaving a long furrow in the earth. It was mostly buried and he spent some time digging at the door, using the sonic to help, trying to get it unsealed.

* * *

"Right, let's bundle up then," Rose suggested and Susan nodded. Koschei looked dubiously around at the shreds and tatters of fabric. Susan began methodically wrapping limbs, while Adie tied the rags on with strips of torn cloth.

"We look a mess," Rose laughed.

"I'd rather be warm and tatty than fashionable and freezing," Susan chuckled.

"Amen!" Rose agreed.

They stepped out of the shelter, wrapped up like mummies and felt the icy cold like knives stabbing into them. They pulled fabric across their faces and started out.

Half a mile seemed near, until you were walking into the teeth of a howling blizzard.

* * *

The Doctor got the door free at last, popped it open, and looked inside.

He blinked his eyes hard against a sudden rush of tears. Those poor people, he thought to himself, looking at the bodies flung about inside. They'd obviously died in the crash, there was no sign that the Manifold had gotten inside, but they'd been terrified at the end, he could see it in the way they were lying, the out-flung arms, their mouths open in eternal screams.

Still, the others were coming; the ship had to be cleaned out; he didn't want them to have to wade through all this. He grit his teeth and began dragging the remains of the crew away, into the soft deep snow, where they wouldn't be seen again.

When this gruesome task was done, with him desperately wishing for a shower, he took a moment to try to restore power. The ship had lost one of its wings, but seemed to be in good shape otherwise.

He quickly realized that it must be a medical transport ship of some sort. The corridors were painted in the ubiquitous hospital green that seemed to be the human ideal for medical facilities. The corridors were wide, designed for wheeling patients through on trolleys, but the crash had twisted the walls and cracked the floor tiles. Still, it was out of the wind and snow and that was the most important part.

/Jackpot!/ he called back to the others. /I'm going to try and restore some power if I can, see if I can get some life support./

/Don't draw too much attention to us! / Koschei warned.

/I know.../ He looked up at the sky, /I know. But if we could get a little, then we could turn on the heat, maybe get some of the scanners working. This thing is half-buried anyway, I can do some additional burying, try and mask off any heat signatures, that is, if we can get power./ After a few minutes he added, /Koschei, I might need your help with the power./

/I'm on my way,/ he replied.

Koschei reached the ship well before the others and the run kept him warm. He stepped into the ship and nodded at the Doctor.

"I think we can bypass this, that should restore a bit of power," he told him, "Except that we have to get this out of the way before we can even begin to work. I can't budge it. "

It was a gigantic piece of shrapnel, and there were wires underneath it: no power until the wiring was free. It was clear where he had tried and failed to leverage it away. He tried a different angle, pushing hard, but he simply didn't have quite enough strength to shift it.

"Can you help me with it?"

"Yeah," Koschei murmured and studied it a moment. They grabbed it together, leaning and pivoting at the same moment and the chunk made a horrible grinding noise before it shifted and they were able to move it aside at last.

"Brilliant," the Doctor told him and they grinned at each other.

Things were looking up.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - Not Dead, Yet.

"Listen," the Doctor told Koschei. "You restore power and I'll go outside, try and get the ship buried as much as I can, it'll cut down the heat signature."

"Don't bother, that blizzard is going to cover us in no time," Koschei replied and then ducked under the decking to get down to the engines.

"Maybe, but I'd rather that the Manifold didn't notice us at all," he called down, handing his sonic to Koschei.

"On the other hand, why don't you try to bury us some more?" Koschei suggested and the Doctor grinned.

He stepped outside, the bitter wind making him gasp, and went to work. He grabbed chunks of wreckage, rocks, and downed trees and dragged them against the protruding hull area, working quickly.

He'd not been working long when the wind changed in its tone, it was starting to roar and howl. He stood up and saw that the horizon was a solid wall of white, coming this way fast.

"Hurry, Rose," he breathed nervously.

As if his words had summoned them, figures appeared out of the whirling white. Rose, Adie, and Susan were slogging towards him.

Rose waved and the Doctor waved back, urging them on. If the storm took them, even ten feet from the door, they would never make it inside.

"Don't worry, Koschei is turning on the heat. In here, hurry, hurry!" he called and they ran forwards.

He got them all inside, shut the door, and turned the wheel.

Forty-five seconds later, there was an enormous WHUMP noise, and then a truly awful racket. It was muffled through all the dirt, the thick metal hull, and the closed door, but it sounded like the buried hospital ship was caught in a waterfall of ball bearings. It didn't let up. The wind was shrieking audibly even through the hull.

"Perfect timing, if I do say so myself," the Doctor said with a small smile and then, with a subsonic rumble, the engines turned over before they quieted down to a soft hum. Lights came up, heat began to trickle in and Koschei, grease stained and filthy, crawled back up.

"You got the heat turned on!" Rose cried with a broad grin and hugged him.

"Apparently, I'm a genius," he told her with a small smile. Susan took her turn next, kissing him sweetly and grinning up at him.

"You're wonderful," she murmured.

"I've changed my mind about staying at this resort," the Doctor announced. "The service is terrible and there's no pool! I give this place zero stars." Rose grinned and nodded.

"Right, next vacation, somewhere warm!" she suggested.

* * *

Tamara-61 ducked down as the rockets rained down around them.

"I think I liked your Ice World better," she told Shevia-48, who shook her head.

"Nyet, you had not seen the wolves," she insisted. "Big as trucks and with huge teeth, long as you are."

"Okay, that doesn't sound like fun," Marissa-32 agreed. Despite the tropical warmth of this Loop, Shevia still was wearing furs, though she'd sloughed off layers until she was wearing essentially a fur bikini. She had a backpack full of the furs though, just in case.

Tamara-61 had spent her time in an advanced war zone, five hours of starship battles and planetary bombardment had given her a pale complexion and a crewman's jumpsuit that adjusted to temperature. She was baffled by the furs, but Shevia-48 was nearly as feral as a wolf herself, so Tamara-61 didn't say anything.

"How long does this last?" Sky-52 asked Mica-41, whose Loop this was.

"Oh, only another two minutes," she assured her sisters, while redoing her neon orange nail polish. Tamara-61 was wondering if anything ever ruffled Mica-41's calm demeanour, when she abruptly jumped to her feet and started walking.

"This way," she told them. "Walk where I walk." They followed her, as she threaded her way through the falling bombs, knowing where each one would land from long experience. "The reset will be coming up in four minutes thirty," she added and they all looked at each other, shrugged and kept on. It was her Loop after all. She'd spent hundreds of years here, learning everything about the thirty minutes and fifty seconds of this war.

"Who's that?" Sky-52 asked, pointing at a soldier crouched in the underbrush.

"That's Martinez, he dies in forty seconds," Mica-41 told them and they kept walking, even when they heard his choked off scream, forty seconds later.

* * *

"I'm going to check for supplies." Adie told them and went to explore the interior of the ship. As she paced down the corridor, she was surprised to find that it was larger than she had anticipated. Only a tiny bit must be above ground, she reasoned. She checked anything that might be a container, especially items like lockers, looking for food mostly.

Then she opened a door and instantly shouted back to Susan.

"Hey, I found the medi-bay. It's not level but it seems to be in pretty good shape."

"Wonderful, I'll be right there!" Susan shouted back and trotted down to where Adie was waiting.

Adie was grinning when she got there.

"I even found you a bonus," she said, coming out of the nearby locker room. She held up a new uniform, thick and warm. "There's twenty of them back here. They're insulated. Rated to eighty below." She gave the brown-eyed doctor a searching look. "Susan," Adie was looking very serious now. "It may take us days to get back to the TARDIS. Is there anything we can do to make this place more habitable?" She flicked a few switches idly, looked at the lights. "I mean, I don't know how good it is, but at least it has power."

"Well, food, water, and places to sleep, that's going to be most important," Susan muttered and turned in a slow circle. "We can sleep on the mattresses from the hospital beds, but food and water is going to be most important."

Adie nodded and went off to continue her explorations.

* * *

The Doctor helped Susan pull the mattresses down and they shoved them up against each other in one of the smaller storage rooms. Huddled together, they could sleep, their combined body heat keeping them all warm.

Night had fallen and they were all exhausted.

They ate some of the tinned supplies from the drone and then curled up together on the mattresses. By mutual consent, they put Adie in the middle, with Susan and Rose on either side of her, and the Doctor and Koschei on the outside.

After a few minutes, the nest of blankets and mattresses became quite cosy and they all fell asleep.

* * *

The Master was slogging through the blizzard, moving slowly. He'd walked all through the night, only stopping to ransack a downed craft. He'd layered several jackets and pairs of pants he'd found inside of it on top of each other. He might look a bit silly, but he was warmer, and that was the important part. Dawn was coming and a faint pale light was relieving the endless gloom.

A shadow in the greyness caught his eye and he spun, throwing himself backwards.

Too late, he caught sight of the beetle. The size of a Volkswagen, it had allowed itself to be covered with drifts, its metallic exterior blending perfectly with the surrounding ice and snow. He had ventured too close and it lunged.

He ducked, rolled, but wasn't quite fast enough. The pincers missed his neck, barely, but pain erupted in his left hand and blood fountained abruptly, falling, freezing even as it did, onto the snow like vivid scarlet snowflakes. He looked down and saw that the hand had been snipped cleanly away.

He brought his blaster around with his other hand, his only hand, now, lurching, off balance. When the beetle opened its pincers again, he pulled the trigger. It was sheer luck that he hit the weak spot just over its eyes, disrupting its cortex, causing it to burst into countless tiny beetles no larger than a quarter.

But it wasn't over. He knew what he had to do or he would bleed to death. He pointed the blaster at the stump where his hand had been, and fired.

He didn't pass out, quite, but his senses went fuzzy and grey. He would have vomited, but he didn't have anything in his stomach just then. He leaned against the wall, his shoulders hunched, his face uncharacteristically wet. There was no way, no way at all that the other him hadn't felt that.

"Bugger, blast, damn, bloody hell!"

He had been trying to keep a low profile, but that was blown now.

* * *

Koschei jolted awake in alarm and with the echo of terrible pain. He looked down at his hand, to reassure himself that it was still there. Susan lay curled in the mass of blankets beside him, staring up at him, eyes wide. Adie, Rose, and the Doctor were still sleeping. He could feel the dawn rising and also the echoes of the Master's pain.

"Susan, you felt it?" he asked her in a whisper and she nodded. Her feelings of alarm and consternation were both gratifying and unpleasant to him. Gratifying, because his wife loved every part of him, every aspect, every regeneration, with equal depth and passion, unpleasant because of the exact same reason. He was instantly aware of his own jealousy... of himself. It was beyond ridiculous, but there it was.

She was looking up at him, her conflicted emotions warring through her.

"Koschei..." she murmured and he nodded. They were both being torn up by this.

She got up and headed into the Medi-bay and began packing. After a moment, he got up as well and went to help her.

* * *

There was no help for it. The Master leaned against the wall, holding the stump of his wrist under his other arm, for no reason other than that he was feeling rather shaky. His grip on the blaster, pried from the fingers of a long dead corpse, was not as steady as he would have liked.

/If I give you the damnable clones, will you get Susan out of here?/ he snapped at his other self. It had taken him awhile to figure out that the 'girls' referred to the clones he had scooped up and he still had no idea why the other him wanted them so much, but he was running out of time and options.

It wasn't as good a plan, but the self-destruct sequence of his TARDIS, if wired correctly, should still be able to collapse the Möbius Grouping. It was unlikely that even the large bug would be able to escape from the gravity well of the resulting black hole. It was his last shot at beating this thing. His other-self had to get Susan out of here. Surely, he could see that.

/How exactly? You knocked her TARDIS out!/ was the reply. /Besides, she'd never agree to leave you./ The Master felt a rush of bitterness at that. He couldn't imagine that the other's Susan cared a brass farthing about him. Why should she, after all? She had the successful version; she certainly didn't need the one who'd failed her.

He pushed himself off of the wall where he had been resting. He had to get moving before the rest of the swarm showed up. He turned his head away from his own dismembered hand lying on the ground, worried that he might become ill again.

/Once I reach my TARDIS, I should be able to slingshot you out,/ he sent back. /From there you can make repairs and get to a safe distance./ He paused. /And you needn't taunt, all right? This is undignified enough as it is./ And painful enough, but he didn't say that.

/What are you talking about? I'm freezing my arse off in the middle of one of the Rani's less brilliant plans! I am a little too busy to bother being petty, just now!/ he received in return and the fear and concern his other self was feeling for Susan was clear in his communication.

/Fine. I'll give you the clones, just get her.../

The word 'clear' faded from his mind, as an enormous buzzing sound filled the air. It was a Wasp, as big as he was. The dismantling of the beetle had attracted it. In spite of its sudden appearance, he counted himself beyond lucky that there was only one. The Swarm couldn't be anywhere nearby or he'd be facing a dozen of them.

He barely ducked its stinger, swung the blaster around, fired and missed. He was off-balance, dizzy from the blood loss and shock, and it was throwing off his aim. The blaster could disrupt the Wasp's core matrix, but he had to hit it just right to do so.

It came at him again and he rolled to the side; and then his luck ran out. It bumped him hard, sending him stumbling against the wall; and then its stinger was through his left shoulder.

He screamed. He couldn't have said what instinct allowed him to bring the energy blaster around, between the creature's eyes. He snapped off the shot and it slumped, the core matrix disrupted.

He had several confused thoughts; the stinger had stuck into the wall behind him, and so he had avoided an injection of venom. The stinger was actually detachable; with the core matrix disrupted, the wasp would be breaking down into its component parts any second. The stinger would be left behind. He had to pull himself off of it, get moving. If the swarm had picked that up… if they were coming...

But everything was spinning, the walls and the floor, and even his blaster, inexplicably dropped to the ground, spinning around in circles… his eyes flickered closed.

* * *

Susan and Koschei both stumbled as the pain from the Master flooded them.

/What's wrong? What's happening?/ she sent desperately to the Master. His mind was eerily like her husband's, yet also different. /I'm coming!/ she called out, concern for him overriding all other thought.

"Can you get a direction?" Koschei asked her, gasping, and she looked down.

This close to the Master the slender golden thread was strong enough for them both to see it clearly. She looked at Koschei and he looked at her, taking her hand in his. His shock was palpable to her and then she felt his gentle resignation.

"We'll work this out, love, now go!"

He helped her put on the backpack, then kissed her fiercely, before releasing her. The Doctor, Rose, and Adie came out of the storeroom, looking sleepy and puzzled. She rushed past them, without speaking, pushed out of the downed shuttle and into the teeth of the blizzard. She had to find the Master.

For all of her conflicted emotions, the instant she'd felt his pain, all she could think about was getting to him and helping him. She was as frantic for his safety as she would have been for Koschei's and she didn't know what to make of that.

She could feel him, he was not that far away, but the blizzard obscured everything around her. She blinked away the driving snow and hoped that these suits were really rated for this intense cold, because, if they weren't, she was in serious trouble. She pulled the gloves on more securely and bent her head to the wind, trying not to think about what she was headed towards and what she was leaving behind.

* * *

"Susan!" the Doctor shouted after her, but Koschei grabbed his arm. His own emotions were whipsawing through him, a confused mess of reactions that he couldn't sort through. There was jealousy, but there was also a strange sort of happiness. He could see how much she loved him from the outside and it was wonderful.

"We have to stay here." he insisted and the Doctor stared at him in shock. "She needs to be the one to talk to him first, you know that. She's the only one he'll really trust."

"It's too dangerous!" her grandfather protested and anger surged in him.

"Doctor, this is Susan. She survived Rassilon, she survived the Tower, the Time War, and she bloody well survived me, she can handle herself," he spat out. "Stop thinking of her as that frightened, screaming child! Now, let's formulate a bloody plan to defeat the Manifold! Too many lives are at stake."

"Quite right," the Doctor murmured. He looked over at Adie and gave her a weak smile. "There's some history there," he told her.

* * *

The Master awoke in a haze of pain, rather surprised that he was awakening at all. The Wasp was gone, so it must have shattered like the Beetle. The passage of time was hard to judge in the Loops, but he was fairly sure that he hadn't been passed out for more than a few minutes.

He had to get moving before the scattered insects could congregate again and remember to come after him.

He shifted forwards and the pain of it wrenched a scream from him. He turned his head and realized that he was still pinned to the wall by the stinger. He panted, his lips dry, his hearts doing a crazy drum roll. He couldn't stay here. The Manifold would be here soon, not to mention the blizzard. Susan was out there somewhere, in danger, and he had to do something.

His left arm was useless, pinned to the wall and with the hand nothing more than a charred and bloody stump. With his foot, he probed the snow for the blaster, each movement sending searing agony through him.

Fighting to stay conscious, he searched desperately for the fallen weapon, the cold of the wall seeping in through the layers of his clothes and the exposed skin on his face burning from the bite of the frozen air.

He looked around frantically, wondering if this was finally it and getting really angry about it. All he wanted to do was save Susan and then die, leaving her to a better life. Dying first was getting things in the wrong order.

"Why can't I ever get this right?" he shouted into the teeth of the wind, the bitterness in his hearts far more painful than his physical wounds.

* * *

Susan pushed through the rising blizzard, blinking against the snow. She had to save him. It had taken her centuries to understand, but she finally had. Too late, she'd thought, but then she had gotten a second chance. Now, that was what she had to give him. A second chance. A chance to be free.

The snow was whipping around her, she could barely see at all, but the slender golden cord remained steady and she followed it blindly.

Something caught her eye and she turned, feeling something sluggishly stirring in her mind.

A large misshapen lump beneath the snow caught her eye and she stared at it for long moments not quite recognizing it. She rarely saw her ship in its raw TT Capsule shape, but the Chameleon Circuit must have failed with everything else.

Her beautiful TARDIS was lying there, in a crater that was already half-filled with snow. Her hearts ached with grief at the sight. Her ship, her dear friend, was weeping in her mind, calling out to her and she wanted to go, to help, but the Master wasn't much farther along and she couldn't leave him either.

"I'll be back soon," she promised her lovely ship. "I'll bring help, the Master can fix you, my dear, dear, girl. Well, once I fix him," she sighed and resumed her trudge through the blizzard.

She climbed up a hill and ahead of her saw the ruins of what might have been a small town. A sheer cliff rose above it, cutting some of the wind and she staggered forwards, slipping in the icy snow until she spotted a pool of black and red amongst all the white. He was pinned to a wall, struggling to free himself, tearing his wound open further as he did so.

She had a moment of stunned surprise. She just stood there, staring at him. He was still the same as he had been during the War. She wondered why she should be shocked by that, but she was. He was tall and slender, with curly black hair and dark eyes. It was like going back to that time, looking at him now, and then she shook herself and hurried forward, scolding herself for wool-gathering when he was bleeding.

"Oh, for Star's sake, Master! Stop moving!" she scolded and jumped down beside him. "Now stay still, so I can get this thing out of you!" She took off her backpack and rummaged for the first aid pack she packed from the crashed ship's Medi-bey. It wasn't much, but it would do to patch him up so that she could get him to the TARDIS.

"Susan...?" he croaked and she looked up at him and nodded.

* * *

He closed his eyes for a moment. He was dreaming, or else he was having a complete psychotic break with reality. It was possible he could have gotten some venom in the wound. But when he opened his eyes, the hallucination was still there.

She no longer looked the way she had in the Tower. Gone were the green eyes and long dark hair, she had regenerated, and her face was now Miranda's. He wouldn't have thought that he recalled Miranda so clearly. He'd had the image of those green eyes burned into him for so long, that it had nearly supplanted all that had come before.

Now it was all recalled, in vivid shades of forgotten colour against a black-and-white world; the reds of her hair, the chocolate brown of her eyes, the pale skin, flushed now with her exertion. He could even smell her scent on the air; it was too clear a vision for venom, too real. He was having a psychotic break, then.

How very kind madness had been and how damned inconvenient that it had chosen to settle on him now.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - Going Mad

The Master had the blaster in his hand; he realized that he must have picked it back up, and he pointed it at the apparition in the snow.

"Get back," he said with cracked lips. It occurred to him that he was terribly thirsty, but he forced the thought away to concentrate. He could see her, but the idea of her touching him, and then fading away into the mists of madness, was unbearable.

"Don't be ridiculous! I have to get that thing out of your shoulder and get you to my TARDIS! You're bleeding! Your hand!" she gasped, seeing the stump for the first time.

"Just get back," he demanded, trying to think through the haze in his mind.

"Let me help," she asked him, reaching out beseechingly.

"No," he said. "I can work myself free. The TARDIS isn't far. You stay back." She was… so impossibly lovely. Her warm sunlight was bathing him and he wanted to curl into it and let go. But he had to stop the Manifold, he couldn't weaken now.

"Oh, you ridiculous man!" she snapped back at him. "I'm trying to help you!" she pleaded, but he shook his head.

"You're not real!" he snarled. "I can't afford to go mad now! I have to deal with the Manifold." She was looking at him and her eyes went wide and filled up with a sudden terrible sorrow.

"All right, love," she told him and backed away, her eyes never leaving his face.

"Farther than that. Back behind that wall and stay there. Go on," he told her, voice shaking with pain and longing. He wanted her near to him, not far away, but he had to stay clear in his head.

* * *

Susan stepped back behind the wall and pressed her forehead against the rotting concrete, her hearts breaking. He didn't believe she was real. Had he been alone for so long? His energy was shredded and tattered, he was falling apart before her eyes and she could do nothing. Tears burned and her throat closed up, as she choked back the sobs that threatened to break out of her.

She peered cautiously around the wall to watch him struggling. His energy, for all that it was in such bad shape, was unmistakably Koschei's. They were the same man, really and truly. She looked at him and felt the same want and need that she felt for her husband. She didn't know what to think or how to feel about that.

"We'll find a way, Koschei" she murmured. "Omega, please let us find a way."

* * *

It was only when she had given him the requested distance that the Master put down the blaster, putting it in his pocket, where he could grab it easily if she came too close. He gritted his teeth, braced himself for what he had to do, and pulled himself away.

He couldn't help the scream that tore itself from his throat, and he crumpled forwards, falling into the icy cold of the snow, his face buried in the wetness, numbing instantly from the chill. He permitted himself an inexcusable moment of rest, gasping.

The shock of pulling himself free should have dissipated the illusion. In a moment, when he had had a chance to marshal his defences, he would open his eyes, look at the wall, and it would be empty. Then he would make his way down to the TARDIS. His hearts were beating painfully fast.

There were hands on him, turning him over, and then Susan's face came into view, looking down at him, her eyes filled with tears and her face pale.

"Oh my darling man!" she sobbed and started pulling at his clothes, shoving pads of fabric and gauze against the wounds. "Please, just let me help you!"

He was startled out of his wits by the sight of her. He backed off by sheer reflex and propelled himself perhaps four inches, his back hitting the wall with a thump.

"Stop it! Stop moving! You'll kill yourself and trying to regenerate in a bloody blizzard would top your ten dumbest moments, even stupider than trying to open the bloody Eye of Harmony!" she snapped and pinned him to the wall with her body, manoeuvring the syringe of painkiller against his leg and injecting him.

"Now! You will bloody well listen to me, you great git! We are going to my TARDIS and you are going to stop being so bloody stubborn." She kissed him swiftly and then pulled his uninjured arm over her shoulder, supporting him.

His mind was having trouble processing what his eyes were seeing. He couldn't stop staring at her. She was holding him, her body solid underneath his arm, against his side. Real and solid and impossibly there.

"Susan?" he whispered.

"Yes! It's me! It's really me!" she insisted. "Now lean on me, love, let me take care of you," she told him, having to shout over the wind to be heard. She started moving, and he allowed himself to be pulled along by her. It felt as if the gears in his head had become uncaught.

"Why… are you here?" he finally managed. It made no sense.

"Because you were hurt! Did you think I wouldn't feel it?" she told him, her face screwed up against the wind and snow. "Just a bit further, now!" Her answer made no sense to him and he stared at her in confusion.

"But our… bond was broken," he cried out and the anguish of that was enough to make his voice break and his body tremble.

"Look down!" she ordered and he did. At first, all he could see was the blur of white and the red splotches of his blood on the snow, but, as he focused his eyes, he saw it, the thin golden thread, stretching between them, tying their hearts together. "Does that look broken to you?" she asked him, as she hauled him through the snow.

"Susan… Susan… I…" He struggled for words, trying to understand how and when it had happened. How had he not seen? How could he not have known?

"Shh, let me get you inside," she told him, hauling him up the hillside. He could feel her trembling with cold and exhaustion, her face set and determined, but so pale, her lips blue-tinged. She pulled him up the last few feet, panting as she did so, and then they were bent double in the wind as it howled down on them.

You arse, he thought to himself. Pick up your damned feet! He forced his body to work, tried to take some of the weight off of her. The blizzard made it impossible to talk now, but they had only a few feet more to go to reach the door.

They reached the TARDIS, which was lying on it's side, and Susan lowered him gently to the ground.

"Hold on!" he thought she shouted, but her voice was whipped away by the wind.

Susan knelt in the snow, searching around the base of the TARDIS for the Equilibrium Switch. Her fingers must be nearly frozen, he knew, and her movements were slow and and fumbling, but she managed to find it at last. She pushed it in and twisted and then moved away, pulling them both back as the TARDIS righted itself.

She fished a key from a hidden compartment above the door and shoved it open, the two of them tumbling to the floor inside. She dragged herself to the console and shut the door. The sudden cessation of the wind was startling.

He lay there, panting and wheezing, feeling the temperature difference slowly thawing him out. It wasn't much warmer inside the TARDIS, but it was enough to make a significant difference in their chances of survival.

"Greetings Mistress Susan," a tinny voice announced. "Master Koschei." He just about jumped out of his skin again at the sound of it. He looked up from his prone position to see a robotic dog looking down at him.

"Hello, K-9, you good dog!" she patted him gently and smiled. "This is not Koschei, this is the Master, please amend him to your files," she told the dog, who nodded and cocked his head at him, eyes scanning.

"Pattern for the Master amended to files, status?" the dog asked with a slight whine.

"Full access, plus all the same protocols that pertain to Koschei" she answered, to his shock, and then she stood up. "Oh dear, this place is a mess," she sighed, looking around.

"I'm…" He shook his head. "I'm so sorry, I was trying to keep you out of here… why didn't you just go?"

"How could I?" she replied absently, trying to run a diagnostic as she talked. "Right, we have minimum power to the medi-bay, thank you, my dear!" she told the TARDIS, giving it a pat as well.

"Susan… please listen to me," he begged, struggling to his knees. He reached out with his only hand and almost stroked her face with it, but then shook his head and pulled it back. "In the Tower… I pushed too hard. I broke your mind like a twig," his eyes were brimming and his throat was closing, but he had to get through this. "By the time I smuggled you out, it was too late, I couldn't…" He closed his eyes. "Susan, I killed you. With my own hands. I could never, never trust myself with you ever again."

"Love, I know, Adie told me," she murmured and he looked up at her in shock. "But, you're wrong. I am your equal as a telepath. If you broke me, it was because I made the choice to die," she told him and reached down to help him to his feet, tucking her tiny form under his arm, helping him towards the medi-bay. "I always knew that it might come to that. I knew it was a choice I might have to make, I'd seen those futures and planned for it," she explained and he winced.

"Oh, Susan," he gasped and she leaned her head against his shoulder. He was horrified as he pictured her in the Tower, planning ways to kill herself.

"Master, I couldn't let Rassilon see the Final Vision and I couldn't let him have access to the Arkytior's power. I knew all along, that I might have to find a way to kill myself, to prevent that happening. So," she grunted as they shoved through the doors. "If you broke me, its because I let you, because I knew that you would make sure he never got me, never got the power." She helped him onto the table, while he stared at her, his eyes never leaving her face. "I let you, because there was no one I trusted more than you to make it quick, painless, and permanent, my hearts," she finished, pulling her flesh regenerator from the wall cupboard and going to work on him.

He gave a great gasp. Her words, combined with the regenerator, left him reeling.

"For… for so long I have… hated myself for what happened to you…" he closed his eyes against the whirling of the room, his mind trying to readjust itself to accept this new perspective.

"I'm sorry that the other version of me had to make that choice, I'm sorry I wasn't able to explain it to you properly. I'm so sorry that you had to suffer, darling man. I never wanted that," she told him, tears in her eyes as she healed him up. "And I am really sick and tired of you decorating my medi-bay with your blood! You know how old it gets, to have to keep putting you back together again, after you do something impossibly noble and stupid?" she sobbed, sniffling as she worked. "Oh, I hate when I cry, my face gets all red." He reached out, withdrew, and then very tentatively stroked her hair with his finger. It was soft and the strands curled around his finger, just the way he remembered.

"Don't cry," he tried to soothe her. "I'm all right now. It looked scarier than it was. Just got unlucky with a beetle, that's all."

"You have a hole in your shoulder, a shattered scapula, and a missing hand!" she snorted. "Don't lie to your doctor, I have the scans to prove you wrong." But, the tears had stopped and her lips were twitching. "Oh, you ridiculous man, the things you get yourself into!" she sighed and pulled a rather more bulky piece of equipment forward, slipping the stump of his wrist inside of it.

He watched her working and remembered another time, so long ago, when she'd designed the cure for the Cheetah Virus. He'd watched her then too, as she moved around a lab, trying to save him. Before that it had been the volcano and his TARDIS, he'd guessed that she was a doctor back then. It seemed he'd been right.

She'd looked the same, he realized. He'd finally reached the future where she was the age that she had been as Miranda. He'd finally gotten to that future and his other self was already there, in the place he'd yearned for, for so long. She was right next to him and still a million miles away. She had her Koschei and it wasn't him.

"Susan…" he looked away, and then looked back at her. "Just tell me, are you… happy? With him, I mean?" He had to know. He had to be sure that he was treating her well, that he loved and appreciated her the way she deserved, the way he so desperately wanted to himself.

"Oh course I'm happy with you, why wouldn't I be?" she answered and he frowned, not understanding.

"I meant with Koschei," he ground out and she looked at him in surprise.

"You are Koschei," she reminded him and he frowned more deeply. "You're not a nutter anymore, not that that ever mattered to me as much as it probably ought to have," she grumbled a bit and put the scanner aside, switching to a bone aligner. "Bloody hell, your scapula's in pieces."

He thinned his lips, but managed not to scream as the shoulder shifted slightly under her ministrations. She glanced at his face and grabbed a painkilling disk, applying it to the skin above his wound and numbing the whole shoulder and arm completely. He exhaled in relief, as the pain suddenly vanished. In the box, his hand was starting to tingle and he tried not to think about the way it was being reconstructed just then, grown back from the bone out.

"Listen… when I get back to my TARDIS, I can use it to open you a portal out of the Möbius Grouping. You'll be able to get to a safe distance." Exhaustion was making him slur his words a bit as he spoke.

"You keep saying 'you'," she pointed out. "Like you wouldn't be coming along."

"Of course I wouldn't be coming along, someone has to stay behind, set it off… can't let the Manifold out of the Grouping, it'll keep going, eating everything in its path, you'll die," he explained, his vision blurring, as he fought his fatigue.

"Well, I am sorry to hear that, because you are bloody well not staying behind, love, and that's that, so make a new plan. Adie says that there's another way to fire the thing, so we'll just have to come up with something else," she told him, giving him a fierce look, while he tried to keep his eyes open..

"You've seen her…? We can fire it remotely at the damage output we need, if she's the centre focus. That would work. Otherwise we need to revert to the point-blank configuration…"

"Adie is here and in a safe place. If I can get you taken care of and get my TARDIS running, which is not going to be easy, we can pick them up, find your TARDIS and work this all out," she told him in a soothing voice. "In the meantime, you put yourself in a healing trance for a bit, while I try to restore full power, all right?" she stroked his face.

"I'm dreaming," he murmured, almost whispering, as the truth hit him. "I understand now. When I wake up, you will be gone…" He closed his eyes.

"No love, if you were dreaming, we'd be somewhere warm, like the house on New San Martine," she sighed and kissed him, her lips chill against his. "Right, need to lay the heat on, damned landlord, what a lazy sot he is," she murmured, moving away, and he plummeted into slumber.

* * *

The Doctor sat down and raised an eyebrow at Adie. Rose, Koschei, Adie, and he, were crowded into the smashed up cockpit of the craft, the shattered windshield giving a view of packed earth and permafrost, but not much else. Despite the force of the crash, the cockpit was relatively intact, though one had to ignore the musty smell of old death and the splotches of dried blood on the walls to achieve any level of comfort.

"Now, what did you want to show me?" he asked gently.

"It's a video, probably taken from surveillance satellites, of what happened here," Adie explained.

"Not sure I want to know that," Rose complained.

"Know thy enemy," Koschei pointed out. "We need to know more about these bugs."

"Yeah, but I saw the bodies, it's not gonna be pretty," Rose sighed and then waved Adie forward. "Let's see it then."

The film started with a long shot of a silver wall that filled up half the sky: it took several seconds before it became apparent that this was a portion of a gigantic insect. The insect had to have been the size of an asteroid, or a small moon, when this was shot.

In seconds, the screen dissolved into chaos. Fighters rose and fired missiles at the impenetrable silver skin, only to be brought down by flying insects large enough to pull them from the sky, or by swarms that hurled themselves into engines, flaming them out and sending the pilots to their deaths.

Pods fell like rain, and from the pods, more insects emerged; tiny ones and monstrous ones, in countless numbers. They cut through fields of soldiers as if they were threshing wheat. Tanks were simply trampled, while those fighters not falling from the sky in flames were smashed ruthlessly aside.

There was the sound of gunfire and flashes of light, but they didn't last long.

The sky parted to reveal a cruiser, bigger than all but the very largest bug: bigger than the falling skyscrapers; a spaceborn city. It fell to the earth, coated in insects of every description. From the point where it contacted, a ball of light expanded, filling everything, consuming the camera in a field of brilliant white.

There was no more.

Adie's face was pale and she was silent as she watched. She had seen the video several times, but it didn't get any easier to watch when it was repeated.

"Ugh," Rose made a sound like she was trying to keep from throwing up.

"I... I don't think even the Rani wanted that," the Doctor sighed out, his face filled with grief and his eyes wet.

"Who knows what she wanted," Koschei shrugged. "She was falling apart rather badly towards the end, trying to find a way to make sure that the Time Lords survived the War, or that some part of their legacy did. She was obsessed with it, especially as the outcome worsened."

"I think it was a field test," Adie's eyes were unreadable. "The Command Centre was run by some… very unethical people. There were other projects going in addition to the Lens."

"Adie, there is 'unethical' and then there is absolutely insane. No one sane could have devised these things," the Doctor told her. "For all of their arrogance towards 'lesser lifeforms', Time Lords are a telepathic race, we feel death, you know that! For them to have gone so far that the pain of other people's deaths meant nothing to them anymore, they must have been on the verge of complete mental collapse. Insanity was a huge problem towards the end of the War. Feeling your friends and loved ones dying all around you, it was ... terrible." He stood and walked to the back of the cockpit, looking deeply shaken.

Adie looked very awkward as she switched off the player.

"I didn't really believe it until I saw them swarming like this," she managed to gulp. "And now, I…" She shook her head. "We are firing the Lens. There are inhabited planets, I can't watch this in real life…" She shook her head again, then took the disk and carefully stowed it away. "And I would like to archive this somewhere. These people oughtn't to be forgotten."

"This is a Loop. It's a portion of the Timeline of some planet somewhere. We've been here a day without a reset, so, I don't know how long it spans. I haven't seen a Masha here either, so, it's hard to know much about it. But, somewhere out there, there is this world. It is missing this piece of Time, but it's there. Maybe it was never attacked at all. It's possible that the Manifold, being released into this Loop were never responsible for any deaths at all there. All these corpses could have not died, could be walking around somewhere, far away, never having experienced any of this. We don't know." The Doctor frowned. "I will find out though."

"There were a very few loops with extremely long resets," Adie said. She paused as she realized what she was saying. "Oh, how stupid of me, of course the Loops were being used for weapons testing. Bound to be other weapons scattered around here, I don't know why I am surprised," she said in a discouraged tone.

"It's a 'safe' way to test," Koschei shrugged. "After all, it's not even in the main timeline, so you don't risk it getting out and harming anyone. The loss of memory for a chunk of a population is a problem, but people always come up with excuses for that sort of thing."

"Mass hallucination, drugs in the water, conspiracy theories," the Doctor grumbled. "People find patterns."

"Until, of course, you engineer something that can break out of a loop," Adie's voice was dry.

"Yes, that is a bit of a problem, but in their defence, I don't think anyone but the Rani would be mad enough to do so," the Doctor muttered.

"Barmy cow," Rose added with a grimace. "Glad she's dead."

"It's a pity, because she really was brilliant, but yes... too far gone," the Doctor agreed.

"I hope that no one else would be mad enough to try something like this," Rose grumbled.

"Well, Rassilon, but that would be because he would be absolutely sure that he could control it, even when it was patently obvious that he couldn't," Koschei muttered.

"He thought he could harness the Arkytior, after all," the Doctor agreed with a look of baffled incomprehension and disbelief.

"He thought that defeating the Daleks would be 'easy' as well, that we'd 'dispatch them in the first battle!'" Koschei looked furiously angry. "Stupid, narcissistic madman." He paused and then chuckled. "Coming from me, there is some irony in that."

"I wonder what other madmen Rassilon collected," Adie mused softly, looking deeply disturbed.

"Well, to be honest, insanity wasn't really common on Gallifrey before the War. We have extremely advanced psychiatric services. The only people who were crazy for a very long time were Koschei, the Rani, and, according to some folks, me," the Doctor teased. "After the War got really bad, then people started losing it. Even in your temporal grace point, you must have felt the lessening of the Song, Adie."

"Yes," she said simply.

"That lessening was terrible for all of us, but then the timelines collapsed and people came back to life, but with the memory of dying, again and again and again. That's when it got much worse for us."

"Some soldiers died hundreds of times, only to not have died, or people who'd survived before, suddenly vanished as that line collapsed. The uncertainty of not even knowing if you were really alive, or if you were dead, or if you'd never have been born in the next collapse, it was too much for people," Koschei explained.

"We were insulated from all of that in the Grace Point, or most of it," Adie explained. "In the beginning of the Command Centre, people would disappear… well, they would be summoned to the War and things… sometimes we never learned why they were missing."

"We were changing history so often that towards the end, probability began to collapse. Things that Never Were, or things that Could Have Been, starting appearing. We ended up in a War with the Daleks and also against our own nightmares, against realities that shouldn't even have existed in the Main Timeline. Time was literally falling apart. That's why we ended up with the Time Lock. It was Time snapping shut, folding into itself to protect the greater time line from what we were doing. It was pure self-defence and it destroyed us. We couldn't feel the rest of Time anymore, we were locked away and trapped in there with the Daleks." The Doctor shook his head. "But, none of this is relevant now. We just need to save the greater universe from the Rani's monstrous inventions."

"It's not relevant, but it should help to explain, Adie, why things were running off the rails so badly towards the end," Koschei put in and then frowned. "I was thinking about it you know, why did Rassilon never come to finish the project? The only idea I could come up with, is that he forgot about it. One too many timelines collapsed and his memory of the project was gone, he never remembered building it at all, because he never did, not in that timeline."

"But, there were hundreds of people who worked on it. One of them must have remembered!" Adie protested.

"Yeah, but were they crazy enough to remind Rassilon about it? If I'd found out he'd forgotten about it, I'd have been very careful to never mention it to him again," the Doctor assured her.

"I'd have kept my mouth shut as well," Koschei agreed.

They all looked at each other and wondered what it must have been like for some lowly engineering tech to keep that secret, even when death finally came for them all.

* * *

Diana-37 was learning that she didn't like swamps. They smelled bad, the insects were annoying, and her boots kept getting sucked down, with the mud coming over the tops and squishing unpleasantly around her toes.

"Zoi-29, What's next?" she called forward and the thin, serious face turned to look back at her.

"Well, the helicopters will be coming over in ten minutes and then they will start burning off the swamp, so we need to make dry land before that," she told them and squinted up at the sun.

"Right." Jake looked at her and Diana looked back at him. "Everybody start running!" Diana-37 shouted and they all began pelting through the mud.

The sound of choppers behind them made them speed up.

"You said ten minutes!" Cassidy -9 shouted.

"They're early? They're never early!" Zoi-29 groused and they all ran as fast as they could.

Diana-37 soon discovered that swamps smelled even worse after they'd been carpet bombed and set on fire.

* * *

On her TARDIS, Susan stared at the mess of wires and burned components with a sigh.

"Darling man, I am really going to need help," she grumbled, reaching out to her husband. He was far away and yet also always right there beside her, inside of her. They were always together, even when apart, but right then, she needed a bit more.

Koschei settled against the bulkhead of the downed hospital ship and closed his eyes.

/All right, love, I'm here, / he told her and slipped into gestalt with her.

Susan crawled under the console, Koschei's mind nestled against hers, with him watching through her eyes, helping her the best he could, and K-9 cheerfully gave her suggestions and ran the diagnostic tests for her, but it was still frustrating.

She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an engineer and that became more and more apparent as she worked. Koschei was being patient with her clumsy attempts to follow his directions, but it was hard for him and she was already cross and unhappy.

She'd gone from the medi-bay straight to the lab, checking up on the babies, emptying out the waste, cleaning the filters, and refilling their nutrients. She started a diagnostic for them, trying to see how they'd been impacted by the crash and feeling horribly guilty through it all. The TARDIS didn't have enough power to run a thorough analysis of the infants' TNA, however.

She'd been keeping them in the TARDIS, instead of on Gallifrey, because of what had happened before. There was no way terrorists could ever break into the TARDIS, after all. But it was obvious that this solution had its own dangers and she was wishing desperately that they were back safe on Gallifrey. She'd been foolish not to offload them before they'd left, but she hadn't imagined anything like the Manifold, or even that the Master wouldn't just come to her quickly, so that they could work through all of this.

Then there was the Master's mental state.

/He's a wreck,/Koschei agreed and she sighed.

/He thought he was having a psychotic break,/ she told him.

/Well, a man would have to be mad to put up with your family, but you're worth it, my hearts,/ he teased. She found herself relaxing and starting to smile.

An alarm went off and she slid out from under the console quickly, the Master was waking up.

* * *

The Master became aware of his surroundings slowly.

He had dreamed of her. Of Miranda… of Susan. An unexpected and wonderful dream. He must have been absolutely delirious. He didn't open his eyes at once. He didn't want to wake up from the dream where her eyes had been brown and her hair had been red, and he had stroked it with one of his fingers. He never wanted to wake up out of that dream, and he spent a moment with his eyes closed, before at last facing the fact that there was work to be done.

He felt a bit groggy and slow, but he raised his hand to his face and blinked in surprise at it. Both hands, still there, he noted, though his left was a bit pink, the skin a lighter colour, the callouses gone. He pushed himself up, before even looking to see where he was and then found himself standing in a strange room, feeling confused.

The door opened and a curvy body sheathed in a gray set of overalls, the sleeves and ankles rolled up, and carrying a tray, entered the room. She turned and the light of the medi-bay made her hair look aflame.

"You're up! I've got croissants and coffee for you," she told him with a smile.

He stared at her with his mouth open, unable to believe his eyes, as she set down the tray and smiled at him. He blinked hard, but she did not vanish.

"Susan?" He moved towards her as if hypnotised.

"Hello, love," she replied and slipped her arms around his waist, smiling up at him softly. "Feeling better?"

"You... you're really here… It's really you…" Suddenly, she was drowning in his embrace as he pulled her to him, holding her much too tightly, sobbing into her hair, as if he could never get enough of it, as if he could never get enough of holding her close to him.

* * *

"It's me, love, it's me, it's okay," she murmured, a warm, soothing, meaningless series of words that only served to underline her presence and reality. She held him just as fiercely, trying to knit up the ragged edges of his psyche.

Koschei, still closely linked to her, added his own strength to hers, his mind filled with his appalled compassion.

/He's in pieces,/ Koschei murmured in her mind and she couldn't fault his analysis.

There was so much to do to heal this one that she almost didn't know where to start.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Reunion

It was a long time before the Master had the strength to let Susan go. When he finally did, he just stared at her. His mind was full of so many questions that he couldn't seem to get any of them to gel into actual sentences.

"Right, back on the bed, I need to scan you to see how healed up you are," she told him gently, then stretched up onto her tiptoes to kiss his mouth lightly "Bloody hell, I forgot how tall you were last time!" she laughed and he ran his fingers through her hair.

"You're here," he murmured and held her tightly to him.

"Oh my love," she whispered.

He understood all at once, as realization flooded into him. He was not mad, but this was not his Susan. This was the Susan of the other timeline. His other self must have sent her here. She was here, and she was doing what she had always done, making him feel that sense of peace, that quiet happiness that he only ever felt when he was in her presence. He couldn't think what she was doing, but allowed himself to enjoy her touch for a moment, before pulling away.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her in a low voice. His hearts were thumping so hard it was almost painful.

"You were hurt, so of course I came," she answered like it was self-explanatory.

"It wasn't that bad," he disagreed with a shake of his head. "You shouldn't have endangered yourself."

"Wasn't that bad?" she retorted, looking at him in absolute disbelief. "You could have died out there!"

"Possible, but improbable." He had cheated death a hundred times. Somehow, he was never quite so fortunate as to lose. "Nevertheless, I am glad to see that you are safe."

"Oh! You never change!" she rolled her eyes. "How many times have I hauled your arse out of danger now? Fifteen? Twenty? Frankly, I've lost count!" she groused. "I was going back in time so often I think I aged an extra century!"

"Yes, I remember," he told her softly and then took one of her hands and kissed it. "I don't believe I ever said 'thank you'. Thank you for everything you did. I cannot tell you what it meant to me."

As usual, her irritation was short lived. She sighed and shrugged.

"Well, you're welcome, but I'm invested in your survival now, so please stop with the killing yourself, all right?" she requested and reached up to kiss him lightly, but he shook his head, stepping back away from the kiss.

"There is no other way. Mathematically, there is no other way. I…" He thinned his lips. This was proving harder than he had anticipated.

"What are you talking about?"

She was so beautiful. He had forgotten how impossibly beautiful she was. The brilliant sunshine of her soul was moving through him and he had to fight not to lean into it, desperate for the warmth she was giving off. If he succumbed to temptation now, he wouldn't have the strength required for the follow-through.

"There is an exponential curve involved," he explained. "We are far past the point where anything but the Lens will have a chance at deflecting it. Well… possibly a TARDIS self-destruct sequence, although that is quite a bit dicier."

"Right, so we put Adie in the middle and we use the Lens, why does that mean that you have to die?" she asked, looking up at him with a perplexed expression. "She said she was the focus."

"You said that," he recalled suddenly. "You've seen her and you know where she is," the words she'd said to him before came back and he nodded.

"Right now, she's with Grandfather, Rose, and Koschei, in a downed hospital ship," she explained.

"The Doctor is alive?" he asked, blinking rapidly.

"Yes, he's alive," she told him. "There are about thirty adult surviving Time Lords, another thirty War Orphans, and I've cloned nearly two hundred more. We're rebuilding Gallifrey, the one in this universe, anyway, Great Gran helped us escape the Time Lock," she told him, shuddering in memory.

She was helping to rebuild Gallifrey. His hearts plunged into his feet and he turned away from her on pretence of kneeling down to pick up his discarded shoes. If she was bound up to this new version of their world, as well as the other version of himself, then there really was no place for him in her life. She was happy, she had a glowing contentment about her that he had not seen before and he had no right to intrude on that.

"I see," he kept his tone neutral.

"What's wrong? You just went gray!" she asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder, her energy curling around him as she picked up his distress..

Arse, he cursed silently at himself.

"Mm, I'll have to watch my shielding," he said. "I didn't realize you were rebuilding, ridiculous of me, of course you would."

"That's bad, why?" she asked, perplexed and worried now, as he withdrew from her.

"Oh, love," he turned back and leaned down to kiss her forehead, "It's not bad. I just…" his voice trailed off, reaching for words. Thought they would be together? What could he say? "I was just operating under… incorrect data, I suppose."

She pulled his head down into a kiss, wrapping her arms around him, her body pressed against his. She poured herself into the kiss, giving her hearts to him, and shaking him to the core. Her mind, her soul, entwined with his own and he hadn't the strength of will to resist when he was so hungry for her. When she finally pulled back, he was breathless and panting, confused, and filled with a desperate need.

"Love, you're coming back with us, you're invited too, you know," she told him softly. "Now that I've found you, I'm not inclined to let you go."

"Thirty live Time Lords, and the Doctor among them? I'd be lynched," he told her, wanting it so much, but shaking his head in refusal. Whatever she was inclined towards wouldn't change the reactions of the rest of the Time Lords.

"Why? Koschei hasn't been," she pointed out. "They aren't all thrilled, no, but they all know what happened and they are willing to leave us be."

"My presence would only make that more difficult," he argued, even though he wanted nothing more than to fall into her and lose himself, never to leave her side again. He just couldn't bring himself to believe that after living so long in the icy darkness, that he would ever be able to step back into the warmth and light of her.

"Why?" she asked, head cocked and gentle brown eyes watching him in confusion. "I mean, sure, it makes my life a bit more interesting, but what would it change for them?"

"I've tried to murder or enslave them all on multiple occasions. That sort of thing isn't easily forgotten. It is less easily forgotten with two versions to remind them of it." He scowled, trying to find the arguments he needed to convince her that being around him was pure folly, but not having much luck, when she was pressed against him so enticingly. He'd killed her, he forced himself to remember that, to remember that he could not be around her, for her own safety.

"Well, Andred will probably never trust you, but Dar always has, and the rest are mostly neutral. My mother hates you, but she's crazy, and my Dad actually gets along well with you, which still shocks me," she informed him with a small frown.

His mind stuttered to a halt. It was so much to absorb. Her father? Evarian? He hadn't seen him in centuries and couldn't imagine that the chilly prig had anything pleasant to say to any version of him. Neutral? What miracle had occurred to make the people who'd spat on him, who'd watched his utter and abject humiliation by Rassilon, suddenly no longer feel contempt and hatred for him. He simply couldn't grasp so great a sea change, it was unbelievable.

"Well none of that can happen if we don't deal with the Manifold," he finally muttered. "Does the Doctor intend to help in any way?" he snarked.

"Of course! Saving the universe is sort of his hobby, you know," she teased. "They are busy formulating a plan with Adie."

He knew he should have felt pleased, but he couldn't quite manage it. It was like everything he had done so far had been for nothing. But, he thought bitterly to himself, he ought to be used to that feeling by now.

She tugged his shirt and looked up at him with a melting gaze.

"You were going to kill yourself to stop them?" she asked softly, her arms still twined around his waist.

"Yes, of course I was," he mused, looking down at her, his hands tracing idly over her without his conscious thought. "They have to be stopped, and who else was going to do it?" He shook his head. "I never wanted you to see all of this," he cried, feeling keenly all his failures. "To be in this wretched frozen hell and deal with these… horrible… monstrosities. I begged Koschei to take you somewhere away, somewhere beautiful, to live with you."

"How could I have been happy, knowing that my happiness was bought at the expense of your life?" she asked, her eyes on his sad. "Did you think you meant so little to me, that I could go lie on a beach while you burned?"

"I didn't think you knew of my existence," he replied, anguished that she'd been endangered by his stupidity, by his errors. He'd nearly killed her. Again. "I thought that it was better that way. That you would have him and be happy, and you never needed to know about any of this." he gestured around vaguely.

"I knew about you before he did," she told him. "I felt you wake up. I felt your pain, your grief, and your anguish, all the way on Gallifrey. I would have felt your death just as strongly." She hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shirt and shivering.

He stood for a moment like a statue: and then his arms tightened around her, as if he was afraid she would vanish if he released her. He rested his cheek on the top of her head.

"I tried to get through to you, but you'd locked yourself up tight," she murmured, her voice a bit muffled against his shirt.

"I… don't know what to do now," he confessed to her. "Omega, I just… I never…" he shook his head. There were no words. He felt so lost.

"You can start by kissing me properly," she informed him and tilted her head up to look at him.

He stared at her, searching her eyes.

"If I did that," he said, and his voice was low and unsteady, "I could never send you back. I could never let go of you again."

"Why would you have to?" she asked. "Did you think that I came here without having talked this through with Koschei? I'm bound to him, but I'm also bound to you. How could I possibly let go of one for the other? No, it's the three of us in this and that's how it is." she shook her head. "We're bound up already. It's done."

He tried to say something, but couldn't. He suddenly grabbed her and crushed her against him and she held him just as tightly.

"I promised you forever, love, and that's what you're going to get. Whether you like it or..."

Her words were cut off by his kiss and she melted against him.

He held her for a moment, just feeling the way their hearts beat out the same rhythm, trying to take in every experience, wanting to absorb every texture, the softness of her hair, her lips beneath his own, the way her arms felt around him, the mound of her breasts, and the swell of her hips. The scent of her was filling his lungs, making him feel dizzy and like he was drowning in something wonderful.

He was scared though. He'd driven her mad and then killed her and for all that he was grateful to get this second chance, he was still nervous.

She tilted her chin and looked into his eyes. Her expression was one he remembered from so long ago, that brilliant faith in him, that utter surrender that always left him shaken and wanting.

"Susan...," he tried to find words for his fears, for his reluctance to get too near to her.

"I'm yours and you're mine and that's all that's ever mattered," she told him, repeating the words she'd spoken to him so long ago and he lost the ability to think rationally. She had always had the power to strip him to his core and leave him naked and vulnerable. Her eyes were filled with the same fragility. They were defenceless against each other.

He had a moment of concern, about how the other him would feel about this, but it was washed away in the flood of need, of love, and the feeling of coming home to a safe harbour, that she always evoked in him.

"Oh my love," she murmured and he wasn't sure what the future held, but he was deeply grateful that he had had this moment, this second chance with her.

* * *

Zoi-29 snapped the grid together and slotted the last circuit into place with a grimace.

"Will it hold?" Diana-37 asked her and Zoi-29 nodded.

"It'll hold," she promised. Diana-37 nodded and stood up without another word. Zoi-29's engineering skills were becoming legendary amongst them. If she said it would hold, then it would hold. She'd built the key that had gotten Devorah-4 out of the Arena in her Loop, she'd created the grav-sled they had used to rescue Bresla-39 from the burning volcano, and she'd re-engineered most of their weapons and created a whole slew of converters using spare parts from a Malldoinai Freighter.

"Right, then lets do this," Diana-37 told the others. She had rescued eighteen of her sisters now and while it had taken them more than a year, they were building up a kind of momentum. They all knew what to do now, how to fall into pairs and search an area for any Masha that might be there, how to adapt to resets that came out of nowhere, and how to fight together as a team.

"You heard her, Amazons!" Jake-77 shouted. "Fall in!"

The Mashas jumped up and ran forwards, following Diana-37 and Jake-77 onto the air car, then Zoi-29 set it in motion, and they dived towards the city below them. They had ten minutes before reset, which was all they would need to rescue their next sister.

* * *

"As nice as this place is, we need to get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor groused and the others agreed.

"As far as getting back to the TARDIS... you know there is another possibility," Adie told them. "You might not like it much, though."

Koschei raised an eyebrow at her, his face unhappy.

"Adie, I haven't liked any of this since day one," he bit out the words in a clipped, painful manner, his shields tightly up to keep his pain inside.

"Nor has being dropped in a snowbank and then running through a blizzard been my idea of fun," Rose pointed out.

"I made a big splash when I landed, Adie, but it wasn't quite what I'd had in mind," the Doctor added with a shrug. "At this point, merely not liking something is going to be a big improvement!"

Adie flinched a little at this. She knew exactly whose fault it was.

"I know, I'm... I'm so sorry." After a minute she pointed to the scan readings in the cockpit of the ship. "What do you think of these readings? I think we're fairly close to the Master's TARDIS. And you never know... he might have kept notes." She looked at them all significantly.

"Adie, this is not your fault and that's a bloody brilliant idea, you clever, clever, girl," the Doctor told her with a grin, but she was already thinking ahead and she was worried.

"Is the Master right? Will we need to use the Lens against the manifold?" This was the possibility that frightened her, and her eyes searched his face, seeking reassurance.

"I don't know, it might be, but I hope not," Koschei told her and she looked at the Doctor, whose eyes met hers with the same concern in them.

"We'll need to do something brilliant though," Rose pointed out. "Those things aren't going to just politely go away!"

"Yes," Adie agreed, "But we can't do anything about anything from here. We need to get to a TARDIS where we can get hard data, then see what's what." She shoved her fears away from her, determined not to fall apart again.

"Agreed," the Doctor replied with a decisive nod. "Operation Grand Theft TARDIS is a go!" he shouted.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Adjustments

Möbius Loop Four: Abandoned Dalek Cruiser

It had been an old Dalek battlecruiser, back in the day, but there were no Daleks aboard it now. They were long dead and gone and the battlecruiser was now a floating hulk. It remained in surprisingly good condition, considering how long it had been abandoned. The flattened disk with its bubbled under surface was dark and pitted.

The scavenging Vridia had occupied the vessel for some years, working hard to decipher the secrets that had been left there, and had had some success. They kept discovering just enough for them to recognize that they were trapped in a Loop, mere moments before the reset would come and wipe that knowledge from them.

Now, after countless hundreds of resets, something had entered the Loop, and their recognition of their predicament came months earlier than it otherwise would have. Too late, though, to save them from the silvery wasps and beetles that descended upon them from the nearby glowing portal.

Those Dalek weapons that they had been able to bring online and fire, tore gaping holes in the endless clouds, but they just kept coming.

With every port and airlock sealed, the Vridia settled in to wait, confident that even the pincers of the biggest beetles couldn't penetrate the tough Dalekenium skin of the battle cruiser. The wasps stung and the beetles scratched and bit, and it made no difference at all.

Then the locusts came.

They flew in on delicate wings, more pewter coloured than the bright silver wasps, shinier than the rather dull beetles, adding a new shade to the silvery-grey cloud. They settled on the battle cruiser like dewdrops, and their tough little pedipalps cut through the Dalekenium like a hot knife through butter. Alarms started blaring at once. The Vridia took up hand weapons and prepared for boarders.

The battle lasted fourteen minutes. The cruiser lasted just under forty-two.

When the Manifold moved on, there was not so much as a speck left to mark where the battle cruiser had once been. Endless trails of locusts were all that marked its passing. By now the size of the swarm was unthinkable, shifting wisps of silver reaching all the way from one end of the Möbius Loop to the other. The locusts took the lead this time, flying to the next Möbius Barrier, and began to chew as space melted around them.

On the other side, in normal space, a tiny point of light formed, glowing faintly, and rapidly began to grow.

Time of Takeover: Two Hours

* * *

In the medi-bay, the heat had brought the room temperature up to at least 60 degrees, and Rose could finally feel her fingers and toes again. Her Time Lord biology was incredibly tough, but even it had it's limits and she knew that she had come perilously close to dying out there. She looked over at the Doctor and he reached out, slipping his hand into hers.

"We'll be fine," he told her and she chuckled.

"You always know what I need to hear," she replied and he pulled her into a kiss, his mouth on hers, breathing warmth into the chilled parts of her soul. She wrapped her arms around him, kissing him back, so profoundly grateful that they were here, alive, and together.

"I love you," he whispered. "You are stars, moons, suns, and planets to me, the breath in my body, and the beat of my hearts." Malla's memory supplied the knowledge that he was reciting an ancient poem of love to her and Rose smiled as she was fed the next lines.

"The sky that arches above me, the world below, all are barren without your touch, your fire lives inside of me, you are my centre, the pillar that makes me stand tall," she answered and he smiled at her, face alight with joy. "That's beautiful, who wrote it?" she asked, since Malla hadn't given her that information.

"No one knows. It was found after the Second Great Time War, stuck between the pages of a field manual, scribbled by some soldier on the battlefield," he explained. "Everyone there had died, so there was no one left to solve the mystery," he sighed and she closed her eyes, thinking of some poor young man, trapped and knowing he was doomed, writing a last message to his true love, before going out to die.

"That's so sad," she murmured and he nodded.

"But that poem has become the way our people have confessed love to each other for millennia now," Koschei told her. He looked at the two of them and smiled and it struck Rose again how different he was now, from how he'd been when she had first seen him. Then he'd been bitter, lost, confused, flailing as he tried to find his footing in a mental landscape that had shifted drastically underneath him. Now, he was calm and certain. If she looked, she imagined that she could see Susan in his centre, the pillar that made him stand tall, even as he supported her, and the Doctor and Rose supported each other.

"That's lovely, though," she agreed. "That his words could live on like that, making people happy for so long." The Doctor kissed her on the temple, and Koschei nodded, reaching for one of the insulated uniforms and starting to skin into it.

Nearby, Adie struggled into the one she had been able to find, while Rose turned to do the same with a slightly larger one. The uniforms were still much too large, but they should be sufficient to get them to their destination. She forced her mind back to the problem at hand, tucking her hair up into a twist on her head. The helmets, at least, had an interior webbing which would make them fit all right on their heads, but her hair was too long for her to leave it hanging.

"Well, we look like a matched set," Adie said and smiled at them. "Ready for Grand Theft TARDIS?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," the Doctor chortled.

"Um... it's my first time," Adie said somewhat sheepishly.

"Not to worry, we're old hands at TARDIS theft!" the Doctor said with a manic grin.

"My first time too, actually," Rose admitted. "Not quite the klepto that those two are!" She teased and the Doctor and Koschei gave her wounded looks.

"Rose, has it ever occurred to you that your husband is leading us into a life of crime?" Adie sighed, looking up at her with a doleful look, but with her eyes dancing with amusement.

"Of course! Why do you think I married him?" Rose told her with a broad grin that was every bit as manic and dangerous as her husband's.

"As long as we are agreed then… after you," said Adie with a smile. Rose was touched by that little stretching of her lips. Adie was so skittish and shy, but slowly, she was seeming to grow easier in their company. She was getting to know them very well, after all, probably more that she wanted to, Rose mused with a small chuckle.

"Allons-y!" the Doctor crowed and led the way to hatch, holding Rose's hand and beaming down on her fondly. She looked up at him, her hearts beating out a joyful cadence.

She was right where she belonged, next to the Doctor.

* * *

Devorah-4 was using the buck knife in her hand to carve little wooden horses. She was the oldest amongst them, the original 4, not a copy run off to replace a fallen sister. The younger Mashas held her in a sort of awe, not that she seemed to care. She cared about very little except getting out of the Loops.

Kayla-8 sat next to her, repainting her boots, which had gotten pretty scraped up in the last Loop. She had lugged paint and brushes through every miserable Loop, through snow, ice, jungles, swamps, and deserts, and at each rest-point, she had pulled them out and added new colours, new swirls, to her boots.

Cassidy-9 was sitting by the fire, telling stories to the younger numbers. Her Loop had had a library and she'd had hundreds of years to work her way through all the books. Now she was teaching the illiterate Mashas to read, but mostly she was telling jokes, keeping everyone's spirits up and making them laugh.

Shevia-48 and Madison-17 were using the whetstone to sharpen their blades, bonding over their shared love of bladed weapons.

"Twenty," Jake-77 murmured to Diana-37, as they sat curled against each other and she nodded, looking at her sisters.

"A year and a half," she replied with a certain amount of satisfaction, leaning back in Jake's arms and resting her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beating beneath her ear and it scared her.

He was only human, but he was the world to her. Sometimes the knowledge that he was not going to live weighed on her so heavily that she felt like she couldn't breathe. She'd learned a lot in the last year and a half and one thing that she knew with absolute certainty, was that she didn't want to live even a day longer than Jake-77 did.

He was her world and without him, there'd be nothing.

* * *

Koschei followed the Doctor and Rose, his face abstracted, and Adie paused to glance at him.

"Are you all right, Koschei?" she asked.

"Yes?" he suggested hesitantly, as though he wasn't quite sure himself. "This is just going to take some adjustment. I thought I had accepted it all when it was purely theoretical, but now... I... think I'm a bit... jealous. Is that stupid?" he asked, sounding a trifle befuddled. He was flushed and moving with a restless energy that startled her a bit and then understanding crashed over her and she just stared at him, trying to comprehend it all.

"Are you saying that Susan found him? She talked him down? And now… they're together?" The words were coming out of her mouth, but she couldn't quite believe it, even as she said it.

"She found him, she talked him down, and now all three of us are... together," he muttered, rubbing the back of his head and turning a bit pink. "The talking him down part was ridiculously easy, I've never had an ounce of willpower where Susan was concerned."

It was a blow against her already fragile psyche, and Adie found herself reeling. She leaned against the wall for support and tried to wrap her mind around it. Despite what everyone had said, she'd never really believed Susan could get to him and... her mind stuttered. What did this mean? They were all three together? Did that mean the Master would what... be staying with them?

So much had happened. Gallifrey was gone, most of the Time Lords were dead, Rassilon, the Tower, the Arkytior, and now, the Master was going to be there, with them all, as one big happy family? The bitterness of that was strangling her.

"I… can't… do this," she managed to choke out. "I'm sorry." She turned and backtracked, stumbling through the ship, blindly, almost mindlessly. Part of her mind reminded her that if Koschei, who had been hit by it all far worse than she had, could accept the change, she should also. It wasn't fair to any of them for her throw a tantrum and it would make Koschei feel worse than he already did.

But all of that was overridden by the knowledge that she was going to be seeing the Master, going to be working with him, and it was just too much at that moment, on top of all she had gone through. Her breath was sticking in her throat and her thoughts were sticking in her head. Her hearts were pounding in fear, every remembered slight and insult rising in her ears. She couldn't see him again, it would hurt too much.

Koschei turned and followed after her with a sigh. He knew that he'd somehow made a mess of things again. His mind was filled with Susan and the Master and the way they were making love, the need, the joy, it was all flowing through him and he had to fight to maintain his equilibrium, the intensity of it was almost too much for him.

"Adie?" he called. "Can I talk to you?" He fought free of their emotional tides, closing himself off as much as he could and striving for calm. Adie was distressed and he had to help her.

"Koschei," she was scrubbing her eyes. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. It's not fair to you for me to just stalk off like that. I know that, I'm so sorry…" She was fighting her tears, but they were still leaking out, even as fast as she was wiping them away.

"Why are you apologizing? I'm the one who should apologize!" he told her. "I muck up everything, all the time, I'm incapable of getting through a conversation without shoving my foot down my throat to the knee cap," he sighed. "I was thrown off-kilter and completely forgot about how it would feel to you. I am really sorry." He leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, sitting in a dejected heap, wondering if he was ever going to learn how to be a decent person.

She sat right next to him, and rested her head on his shoulder.

"You're actually a very comforting person to be around," she told him. "I guess I've just… been in some denial, I suppose. I hadn't even considered that Susan might really pull it off, might be able to get him to side with us. I guess I wasn't brave enough to face the fact that… that he's going to be around us all. And Gallifrey is gone, and Masha-37 went back to the Loops, and it's just been a lot in a very short period of time, but I feel like I should be handling it better." She sniffled, the tears finally trailing off. "I shouldn't be going to pieces. I am so sorry, Koschei."

"Adie," he started and then paused. "I'm not as good as the Doctor at saying things, but I'll try. For Susan and myself, Gallifrey has been gone for nearly a decade. It's been even longer for the Doctor, and Rose never had been there. For you, it's been a few days only. You've not been given time to mourn, or to even really think about it." He shook his head. "You are doing what we're all doing, the best you can with what you've got," Koschei sighed. "How old are you?"

"I was two hundred and eighty-one when I had the Vision. two hundred eighty-eight when the Seers… when Rassilon..." She shook her head and tried again. "When I was removed from the tower and consigned to the Master. We worked on the project for a century and then I spent a century taking care of it, while he was in Stasis."

"So, you have had about two hundred years or so of actually being sane, but are about four hundred biological years, eh? That's not all that much, Adie."

"Yes, that's about right and whether it is much or not, I have been feeling very old lately," she told him, her face reflecting her weariness.

"Yeah, I know about that feeling," he sighed. "So, the point here is, how are we going to handle this?"

"Better than I have so far, I hope," she gave him a slightly watery smile.

"I meant are you going to be able to be in the same room with him, without having the urge to grab a spanner?" he teased gently and she winced a little.

"Sorry," she said automatically, but then said, "Yes. I will… cope and he won't be threatening anyone at that point."

"No, just my sanity," he sighed and twitched, his face flushing a bit. "This is hard, harder than I thought... no, easier than I thought it would be, but also harder in other ways. She's happy and that makes me happy, but I liked being the one that made her happy and in a weird way, I still am, but that doesn't change that I feel... confused, I guess." He sighed. "Talking about myself again, wow, I am still a wanker," he groaned, fighting to keep his mind focused. Susan and the Master were reaching a crescendo of sensation and emotion, wrapping themselves more tightly inside of each other and Koschei was being drawn in as well, his link to Susan connecting him to both of them.

"No, it makes you honest," Adie disagreed, "And if you are a wanker, I am a double wanker, because I have monopolized the conversation so far."

"But the whole point was that I came back her to talk about you..." his words broke off and he closed his mouth with a snap, hands fisting, as he fought not to cry out with them, feeling their climaxes racing through his own body as well. His torment ended finally, as they relaxed, curling up to sleep and he sat there, blushing furiously, and grateful for the insulated suit's bulk

"Let's really just talk about you, right now," he pleaded, needing to think about anything other than how he was feeling just then.

"Um… all right… let's start with… I'm feeling better?" she suggested tentatively, blushing as well, and he closed his eyes against the horrible awkwardness of the situation.

"That's good," he told her, trying to think about it all from her point of view. "Look, if you don't want to see him, we can always keep you two apart somehow."

"That won't be necessary for me. I will cope," she said, mostly to herself, but in a tone that brooked no possible contradiction. "The problem is going to be the others."

"The Mashas," Koschei groaned, feeling a rush of apprehension as he tried to picture that reunion. "Do you think they will be as understanding as Martha was?"

"No chance. On the upside, most of them have very forgiving natures. I think if we can get through the… hm, initial introduction? They might eventually come to accept him. But I will say this: if one of them comes after him, it won't be with a spanner, it will be with something far more potent."

"Right if he can survive the first few weeks, he'll be okay, if not, well, my wife will be utterly devastated. Great." Koschei groaned, trying to figure out how to juggle all the hand-grenades he had in the air.

"That will work in his favour," Adie pointed out and Koschei nodded, as his mind worked through that as well.

"Yeah, it's like a magical power she has, people don't like to hurt her. Did she ever tell you about the Arthur? He wanted to adopt her, make her a Princess of Avalon, the Galahad accepted her favour, even, went into battle for her." He shook his head. "The Queen of Atlantis gave her a crown of pearls, several Emperors of China dote on her, as for just everyday average people, they love her too. I used to not understand it." He laughed softly. "It took me ages to figure it out."

"Oh? What is the secret?" she asked, tilting her head up to look at him in interest.

"It's actually both absurdly simple and really complicated. She really, genuinely cares about people; she feels their pain, their joys, their little sorrows, and wants to give everything she has inside of her to make things better for everyone around her. She'll work herself to death to stop a plague, or save a life, and she doesn't know how to stop trying. That's it. The big secret. She cares when most people don't." He smiled at her. "She even cares enough about a bastard like me, to spend her life putting me back together again."

"From here it looks like it was an awfully good investment," she told him softly and he shook his head.

"I don't know, Adie, I have caused her so damn much pain. I'm just not at all sure that I'm worth it," he admitted. All that she had gone through, the Tower, Rassilon, the War, going back in time to save his life, again and again, those two hundred years of having him in her head, tied to a madman, while he raged and plotted. It wasn't what he had ever wanted for her.

"Did it ever occur to you that you have given her great joy as well?" Adie asked, looking at him with a steady gaze.

"Not enough," he sighed. "But maybe two of us can try to make it up to her." He thought about the Master, how he was willing to die for her. Maybe if they both worked hard, for the next ten centuries or so, they could find a way to balance their debt to her.

"But that is the catch," Adie said and looked at him earnestly. "You can't gauge how she counts the joys against the pain. Only Susan can do that and I think that Susan perceives much more joy than you do. That's her view of reality." He looked at her, those hazel eyes in her heart shaped face, the thin straight nose, the rosebud mouth and pointed chin and he nodded, suddenly knowing who she looked like.

"I'm a bitter, cynical fellow these days, but you're probably right, I guess I know that in my head, but it never seems to sink into my hearts," he told her and the understanding explained everything. Why he liked this child so much, why he felt the same trust in her, the same affection for her as he did for the Doctor. He nodded again and found himself starting to smile.

"You know," Adie mused thoughtfully, "I used to talk to him. When he was in stasis. I can sympathize a bit with Susan's position. I always wanted him to… I don't know… like me. Or at least notice me. He was so cold; I tried to break through that sometimes, but I never could. I guess it just… I don't know, makes me sad. Do you really think she can make that much of a difference to him?"

"She did to me," he pointed out. "Am I anything like him?" he asked with a wry smile.

"No," she admitted. "I was shocked, when I first came, at how different you were."

"That's because I'm really me now and because Susan has been, ever so gently, helping me put myself back together again. Look, I was rebuilt when I was eight. I grew up with all this rubbish in my head. Who I might have been? Well, we'll never know, because I never was allowed to grow up without Rassilon's influence. I've had to fight my way back, to find a moral centre, to be a better man and I did that because, when Susan looks at me, that's who she sees. A better man. So, I become that for her." He cocked his head studying her. "You see?"

"I think I do," she said. "I understand being rebuilt at eight, that's for bloody sure. But it… makes me feel better about watching to see what he does, I suppose." She smiled at him, and it was a genuine smile and it was a bit like catching a glimpse of the sun.

"It actually helps a bit that you understand, Adie, though I'm also sorry that you do," he told her and shook his head. "It's going to take time for him to let down all the walls he's built around himself. I created this vast fortress around my heart, trying not to care, not to feel. Everything always hurt so much and I was driven to do things that, deep down, I didn't like and so I shoved my feelings far away from myself. When they finally all came back to me, I nearly broke. Oh Adie, when he wakes up one day and it's all there in front of him, he's going to fall apart completely. It'll take every one of us to hold him together, to keep him from killing himself. Susan ... Well, I had Susan and even so, it was a near thing several times." He closed his mouth, looking a bit ashamed suddenly.

Adie looked very surprised.

"You really think he will react that strongly?"

"I know he will and not just because it's how I reacted. I can feel him up here," he tapped his head. "It's like watching flood waters pushing at a dam. Eventually, it's going to break."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Grand Theft TARDIS

"Oi! Are you two coming along or not! We have a TARDIS to steal!" the Doctor shouted as he stomped down the hallway. "Move it!" Rose was right behind him, grinning broadly. Koschei smiled back and climbed to his feet, helping up Adie as well.

"Come on," she called. "We have an adventure waiting!" Koschei shook his head, amused by how very much alike the two of them were. He often wondered if the Doctor had consciously arranged that when he regenerated, or if he'd merely imprinted on her, taking on so much of who she was because she was the one person he really cared for back then.

Adie stood there, looking startled and a bit scared, which puzzled him, the Doctor was hardly a threat to her, nor was Rose.

"I'm all right now. Doctor… I am very sorry for going to pieces like that. Please accept my apologies." She bowed to him and Koschei frowned at her extreme deference.

"Did you? I thought you'd forgotten your toothbrush or something," the Doctor answered, looking puzzled, while Rose just sighed behind him. Adie blinked in surprise, obviously not sure if he really had been oblivious to her distress, or was merely joking. Koschei and Rose grinned at each other, but neither bothered to enlighten Adie, she'd just have to learn how to manage the Doctor on her own.

"Your Majesty, are we keeping you waiting?" Koschei snarked and rolled his eyes. "So terribly sorry that we've delayed your trek through a howling blizzard!"

"As you should be!" the Doctor retorted with a lofty air. "Allons-y!" he shouted and then they were all heading outside again.

They exited the ship and Koschei was very glad for the insulated uniform. Even trudging across this icy plain, he was shielded from the cold. The blizzard was already dropping off, making visibility better and allowing them to talk without having to scream at each other.

Now, if only his wife was here, everything would be good.

* * *

"For my own curiosity," Adie asked. "How do you steal a TARDIS if you are not keyed for entry?" She had been puzzling over that ever since she'd spotted the Master's TARDIS on the scans.

The Doctor chuckled, a low throaty sound of enjoyment.

"So, Adie my dear, I knew from a young age that I really wanted to get off of Gallifrey. I mean, really! That place was utterly stifling! Until Susan came along, I lacked an impetus to launch myself forward. However, I'd been contemplating that very question for a rather long time. A TARDIS can only be flown by the pilot that it is bonded to psychically and who's TNA has been fed into the recognition system. The thing is, sometimes a pilot dies. So, how does one fly a TARDIS without the bonded pilot, how do you transfer ownership, as it were?" The Doctor was grinning, eyes alight, cheeks red from the cold, but radiating a warmth and gleeful amusement that were infectious.

"You are obviously dying to tell us, Theta," Koschei drawled. "So tell us!"

"The High Council has a reset code that works on all TARDIS, setting them to be ready to accept a new pilot!" he announced, ignoring Koschei's snarking. "All I had to do was to steal that code and any TARDIS I wanted to pilot would be mine!"

"You hacked the Protected Files," Koschei murmured in wondering awe. "How in all the hells did you ever manage that?"

"That secret, I will keep," the Doctor answered, his eyes twinkling.

"Along with all the others," Koschei murmured, but Adie wasn't sure that she had been meant to hear that, so closed her mouth on all of her questions.

"Wait, you could have stolen any TARDIS?" Rose asked him suddenly.

"Yeah," the Doctor replied preening visibly.

"Then why," Koschei asked, exchanging a look with Rose. "Why did you steal the oldest and most unreliable TARDIS in the universe?" he asked, baffled.

"Well... I'd stolen the code... but, I still didn't have an actual TARDIS key. So, I stole the only one that was unlocked," he admitted, looking a bit less proud of his achievement.

"Wait, you stole the code, but couldn't steal a key?" Adie asked.

"They are biolocked, you know! You can't just steal a TARDIS key and make it work! You need one that matches your own TNA, or has been coded for guest entry to that particular TARDIS!" he snapped back, a bit peevishly.

"So, how did that Chinese boy get into your TARDIS, or Tegan, or all the other ones who just wandered in?" Rose asked, hands on hips.

"Ah, yes, you see, my girl was very old and a bit... capricious," the Doctor replied, his tone evasive.

"So, she just let in anyone she rather liked?" Koschei pressed and the Doctor frowned at him.

"Something like that, I suppose," he retorted and began walking faster.

"So, all those times I broke into your TARDIS?" the man who had once been the Master asked with an innocent tone. "She was what? Cheating on you?"

For some reason, the Doctor seemed not to hear that comment, stomping off through the snow with his hands shoved into his pockets, glaring at nothing. Rose and Koschei grinned at each other and Rose winked at Adie.

"It's very important, you see, Adie," she whispered to her. "To keep his ego from getting too out of bounds."

"He has so much of it you see, it might get to be a problem," Koschei teased, but Adie could sense something behind it all, a concern, even a fear that both of them shared, as they turned and hurried off after the Doctor.

Adie moved more briskly after them, wondering what was behind those walls the Doctor had erected and why the people who loved him most in the universe were also so terribly scared of him. She stopped suddenly in her tracks as another possibility occurred to her. She stared after them all, mulling this over in her head and still not understanding it, completely.

Maybe, they weren't scared of him, but for him?

* * *

Leia-76 was chewing on a pencil end, as Zoi-29 worked through the schematics.

They were sitting, side by side, in the stone igloo. The winds of the Dust Loop were howling, but in that cosy shelter, they barely heard it. Diana-37, Jake-77, and several of their sisters were working out the next mission, figuring out the route by which they would rescue the next few Mashas.

"I know that there has to be a way to create a bridge from inside the Loops," Leia-76 grumbled. "I understand the principles, of course, the physics is dead easy, but the maths are proving elusive," she sighed out.

"Well, if it was easy, one of us would have figured it out before," Zoi-29 responded with a small smile.

"True," Leia-76 agreed. "Still, it's theoretically possible, I've got the proofs," she pointed at the scattered papers around her, all filled with equations in her cramped handwriting, and Zoi-29 grinned up at her.

"I'm sure that it is, but I'm working with bone knives and bearskins here," Zoi-29 reminded her and Leia-76 bit back a snort of amusement.

"What I wouldn't do for a proper computer," Leia-76 mused and Zoi-29 looked up dreamily at the sky.

"A workshop, a proper one, with an ion lathe," she murmured.

They looked at each other and burst into giggles, amused by their unrealistic dreams.

* * *

Susan lay curled against the Master, but her mind was split in two. As happy as she was that had been able to get through to him, she was worried about Koschei.

She loved Koschei, was bonded to him so deeply that she could feel his confusion and the fight inside of him with every fibre of her being. The same war was being waged in her own hearts.

She opened her eyes and looked at the deep circles under the Master's eyes, the lines of pain etched into his face, and felt an aching tenderness inside that drove her to care for him, to love and tend to him, but the conflicted feelings in Koschei made her wince as well.

Koschei was fighting to accept and that made her love him even more. The compassionate generosity in him, the desire to keep her from pain, she couldn't help but respond to that. She missed him desperately, with a painful ache in her chest, even as she found herself unable to release the Master. They were both so hurt, so in need of her, and she needed them as well.

/What's wrong?/ Koschei's mind touched hers as he picked up her conflict and distress.

/I don't know how this is going to work,/ she admitted.

/However you want it to, wife,/ he replied, his mental voice very gentle.

/We can't leave him behind, Koschei, he's falling apart already,/ she sighed and could feel his agreement. /Could we give him a place on the TARDIS?/ she asked, wondering if she was asking too much of Koschei. A sudden gust of relief came over her from him.

/Of course. I was going to suggest it, but I wasn't sure...,/ he replied and she felt a wave of joy rush through her.

/We can give him the chestnut bureau, and the middle drawer in the bathroom!/ she decided and Koschei laughed.

/We'll talk to him about what he wants, Susan, going slowly, as he's very badly hurt, okay?/ Koschei replied and Susan chuckled softly, breathing easier now.

/Yes, of course. I'm going too fast again, aren't I?/

/No, you want us both to be happy, that's never wrong, love. I want that too, but we don't yet know how he'll feel about all this. Wait until he wakes up and see if he's okay with it all, then we can make plans, okay?/ Koschei murmured to her and she nodded, her cheek rubbing against the Master's shoulder.

/Yes, love,/ she sent back to him, wrapping her mind around him, embracing his hearts from a distance, her love for him so vast and deep that there was no end to it. He curled back inside of her as well, reassuring her and loving her and she fell back asleep, wrapped in Koschei's love and the Master's arms.

* * *

Rose was tired, cold, and rather hungry, as she trudged through the snow. They'd been following the Doctor's sonic for hours, the monotonous beeping guiding them unerringly forwards.

She came around a pile of strewn boulders and saw a hill rising up in the direction they were headed. With a weary sigh, Rose began climbing up visions of steaming cups of tea at the end of this sustaining her. Ahead of her the Doctor was waving his sonic, behind her, Koschei was helping Adie walk on the slippery surface.

There was a jolt under her feet, a sensation of movement and the hill upon which they were walking suddenly sprouted a head and was now looking at them rather quizzically, its long antennae rising some thirty feet into the air.

"Get off the hill! Get off the hill!" Adie shouted and Rose thought that that was excellent advice.

The Doctor fiddled with his sonic sent a quick burst of EMP out at the giant metal insect they were standing on.

Suddenly, the big bug fell apart into its smaller selves and Rose fell through a rain of metal insects, landing hard, and rolling to her feet quickly. Behind her, she heard the tinkling clatter of the insects starting to reform and she took off running, following the Doctor as he sprinted onwards.

A swarm of Wasps rose around them and several of the tank-like Beetles shook the snow off of themselves and trundled after them. The Locusts seemed uninterested, nothing much about them was useful for conversion, flesh was of no use to them, and the Ants were milling about, looking for materials.

The Wasps shifted into formation and Rose glanced back.

"Run!" she screamed as they charged. Koschei grabbed Adie's hand and yanked her out of the way of a diving Wasp, then they both tumbled down a snowbank, struggled to their feet, and kept running.

Rose was using every ounce of her Time Lord strength to put on more speed. The Doctor was just ahead of her, his trainers brilliantly red against the snow.

She hit a slick patch, her feet going out from under her. She screamed, as the shock of pain from landing on a hidden rock, jolted through her body. The Doctor turned and looked back at her, his eyes going huge and wide.

She felt a sudden jarring impact, as though something heavy had struck her in the back. Looking down, she saw a jagged, metallic spike pushing through her stomach. She tried to take a breath to scream, but couldn't. The Doctor was shouting, but she didn't hear anything.

Blackness overcame her.

* * *

The Doctor raced towards where an Ant the size of a pony had impaled Rose, his hearts pounding madly from sheer terror.

"Rose!" he shouted and used the sonic to short out the bug, it collapsed into thousands of tiny insects, leaving Rose lying in the snow, with a gaping hole in her abdomen. Koschei and Adie turned back and he heard their shouts of dismay.

He fell into the snow beside Rose, trying not to cry, or panic. He wished Susan was there, with her medical tools and knowledge. He wasn't sure what to do and there were more bugs coming. He thought fast, though his brain felt like pudding and his legs were trembling.

He wrapped her quickly in his coat, packing her wound as tightly as he dared and lifted Rose's unconscious body in his arms. He began running as fast as he could towards the TARDIS and saw Koschei, with Adie hidden behind him, standing there with the sonic the Doctor had dropped, disrupting bugs as fast as he could.

The Doctor ignored everything; his only concern was Rose, his only thought to get her to safety, to make sure she was alive.

He could not lose her, not after everything they had gone through.

"Get the door open!" Koschei shouted. "I'll cover you!"

The Doctor didn't spare the breath to answer; he just kept running while Koschei kept disrupting the bugs around them.

He reached the TARDIS, which sat there looking like a large boulder on the snowy plain, and leaned his forehead against the door.

"Adie, I need you to enter the code," he told her, his arms filled with Rose.

"Okay," she replied, her voice a little shaky, but her fingers quite steady.

He recited the string of numbers and letters to her and she tapped it into the door lock.

There was a long moment, as the TARDIS considered, and then the door opened and he shoved into it, looking around wildly.

"Adie!" he shouted. "Where's the medi-bay?"

"This way!" Adie called, darting inside.

The Doctor raced after Adie, pounding down the darkened corridors with no thought to spare on anything but Rose.

As soon as they got into the cold, dark medical bay, Adie started prepping a bed and he settled Rose into it. The bed made a slight wheezing sound, as it struggled to power up. He carefully removed the coat, watching the bed struggling to apply patches to her, to try to stop the bleeding.

"Can you handle things here? Are you a medical doctor?" Adie asked.

"No, I am not a bloody medical doctor, I'm a temporal physicist and I have a PhD in Cheesemaking!" He gave the monitor a thump and the bed powered up, sealing the gaping wound and stabilizing Rose's vitals. He had gotten a medical degree as well, but that was in the 19th century, and he didn't think it would do him much good just then.

"Me neither," Adie said, "I'm going to help Koschei get the TARDIS going, you take care of Rose, all right? We'll try to get to Susan!" She was out the medi-bay, running full out.

* * *

Koschei slammed the door to the TARDIS and ran to the console. The power was minimal, but it was enough to throw up the shields. He began frantically re-routing power, trying to bypass damaged systems.

"Koschei!" Adie called through the intercom. "The Doctor has Rose in the medi-bay, engineering is a mess, how much power do we need for you to do a hop? And where are the locusts?"

"Good, yes, more than we have, outside," he rattled back and dived under the console.

The sound of scratching and the view on the scanner confirmed the Locusts' location, they were bumping off the shields for now, but that wouldn't hold them for ever. Koschei was working in complete silence, no energy to spare even for swearing.

Within a minute, the console began beeping at him warningly. The shields were already going down under the locusts, and more were swarming at them every second.

"We need to get into the Vortex!" he shouted. "You keep oscillating the shields, I'm going to engineering!" he called and ripped up a trapdoor in the floor that Adie hadn't ever seen before, then he dropped through it, and out of sight.

* * *

It was immediately possible to tell when the first locust had gotten all the way to the hull of the TARDIS; the sound of crunching was awful. The oscillation of the shields knocked a few off, but it wouldn't buy them much time.

"We could do a burn?" She called down through the trapdoor. "Pick some rooms, disintegrate them, convert the mass to enough energy for a hop, what do you think?"

"No, no! That won't work! The engines are down, without them we're going nowhere! Give me five minutes!" he shouted back, but it came from the console, not the trapdoor, there was a comm system somewhere.

Adie looked at the scanner with a pale face.

"Koschei… I seriously doubt that we have five minutes."

The console brightened and began to hum, power flowing into the boards. There was a smell of ozone and the crackle of something and then the console began to rise and fall. They were de-materializing. The TARDIS was reacting as though it were driving itself and she realized that he must have a secondary console in engineering somewhere.

It didn't stop the sound of crunching: but it helped. Those locusts that had managed to latch onto the outside of the hull remained there, even through the de-materialization, they had been designed that way. Thankfully, there weren't very many that had managed to slip past the shields. She tried oscillating the shields again to shake them off and it took a number of tries to finally pry them loose. The exterior of the TARDIS probably sported a number of deep holes, she knew, but at least the trans-dimensional interface remained intact. They weren't trapped inside the TARDIS for all eternity.

"Quarantine field is going up," Koschei called to her and there was now another hum underlying the rest of the sounds. "Just to make sure that the tiny ones aren't able to get in."

He climbed out of the trapdoor, filthy and covered in soot and ash, brushing futilely at his clothes and shaking his hair out.

"Are you all right?" Adie murmured.

"Aside from nearly becoming bug chow, having my best mate nearly killed, and almost getting fried by the TARDIS, cause I did something stupidly dangerous to restart the engines?" he asked and shook his head. "No, I'm not."

"If you want go to help, with the Doctor and Rose I mean, I can probably handle repairs," she said shyly.

"No, the only thing that will help Rose is getting us to Susan as fast as we can," he sighed. "She's a brilliant doctor and Rose looks like she needs a brilliant doctor."

"Agreed. How can I help?"

"Get down to Engineering and let's see what we can do to get the architectural reconfiguration system up and running, meanwhile I'll hit the wardrobe and grab something to wear that isn't smoking," he sighed.

* * *

Koschei stroked the console softly, remembering all the things he'd done in this TARDIS and then looked around, thinking about what he needed to be fixed once the architectural reconfiguration system was up and working again.

Adie had her hand forwards, about to make the exact same gesture that Koschei had just made. She gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look, blushed madly, whipped her hand behind her back, and left the room at once.

Koschei watched her go in some confusion, but his attention was immediately claimed by the lab. The console room opened up almost directly into it, which made it rather hard to ignore. Koschei glanced over and then away quickly, not wanting to think about what his other self had used some of that equipment for. He had enough nightmares about the things he'd done himself without adding more. In the dimness of the emergency lighting, the equipment lurked like monsters hunkered down, light glancing off of straps and probes that made him shudder.

He ignored the lab for a moment and went to the wardrobe room. He needed something to wear that wasn't smoking or covered in ash. He stripped and stepped into the fresher unit and out again. It wasn't as pleasant as a shower, but they were short on time. He went to his wardrobe and pressed a palm against it, flinging it open.

Shirts, ties, jackets, all still here. He pushed through, but it wasn't there. He frowned. Where was it? Looking up, there was a box. He pulled it down, opened it, and there it was. His favourite shirt, the one Susan had worn that first time on Gumphus. His fingers stroked the fabric lightly and he went to pull it out, only to freeze.

Underneath it, folded carefully, was a torn and dirty white Acolyte's robe from the Tower of the Visionary. He shivered, remembering what Adie had said before. Susan had died in that other timeline. She'd died and never gotten into the Academy, never been a doctor in the War, never regenerated into the lovely blonde haired, blue-eyed girl he'd saved from her own collapse. She'd never helped the others to escape from Gallifrey, or found him again in the ruins, bringing him back to life. All that they had gone through had never happened to the other him. He shuddered at the thought of it.

The box had the neckties and shirt, her robe and a small vial, with a lock of Susan's hair from her second regeneration in it, a single chocolate brown curl. This was all the other him had of her. Tears in his eyes, he sealed it back up carefully and replaced it.

Choosing a different shirt and trousers, he shut up the wardrobe and leaned against it, shoulders shaking. He'd been jealous, hell, he still was, but now he also felt a surge of desperate pity for his alternate self. He let go of some of his selfish desire to keep her all to himself and moved on to work on the TARDIS.

If there was anyone in the universe who could understand what the Master had lost after all, it was Koschei, who had gone through it too.

* * *

The Doctor stood helplessly by as Rose fought for her life. The power had come up and the Medi-bay had gone into action, working on her with its full range of machinery, but she'd lost a lot of blood, had already been weak from the crash, and had gone into shock.

He hit the intercom.

"Koschei, we need Susan, or Rose might not make it," he called.

"Already on it," Koschei told him. "I need to repair a couple of systems and then we'll have navigation back online.

He leaned down and kissed her brow and then just held onto Rose's hand and prayed to every power he could think of, hoping that at least one of them was listening.

* * *

Koschei upgraded Adie's permissions to full co-pilot, so she'd have access to everything, and then called down to engineering.

"Adie, do you have the architectural reconfiguration system online, yet?" he asked.

"Almost. Once it's up, what would you like me to build?" she replied, her voice a bit tinny through the half destroyed wiring.

"They Zyton-7 crystals are fried, but I will have spares, the Hadron Power Lines are not going to last much longer and life support is going to need new components... Well, start with the replacements for the Hadron Power Lines, I guess." He was opening the console and pulling out the crystals, even as he was directing her. "It would be rather awkward if the Protyon Unit failed after all." It was an understatement, of course, but he didn't want to alarm Adie with just how badly damaged the TARDIS was.

"I'm nearly done," she told him. "And done!"

"Right, get the Hadron Power Lines patched up and after that, the Life Support Systems, we're going to need them," he sighed. He dropped back under the console and got to work. They didn't have a lot of time.

"What will you be doing?" Adie asked.

"Well, until I get the Directional Unit repaired, we can't re-materialize, so I figured I would fix that," Koschei replied. There was a long silence.

"Yeah... that sounds like a good idea," Adie squeaked and Koschei went back to work.

* * *

Adie began her chores rather sadly.

It was a bit amazing, really, the number of assumptions which had somehow crept into her life, things she had never looked at or thought about until the present circumstances had required her to do so.

She knew perfectly well that TARDIS didn't care about random girls who showed up sometimes to do maintenance. Her name appeared on a list that allowed her to open a few doors, and that was all. Of course it was the Master's TARDIS. Naturally Koschei, as another version of the Master, would feel fond of it. Naturally, now that the Master had awoken, he would take the TARDIS and that would be the end of it.

But, for a hundred years, this ship had been the closest thing she had had to a friend, the only thing to possess anything resembling a presence or intelligence in what had amounted to enforced solitary confinement; the thing that had kept her from going quite mad.

Now it would be leaving her, going with its pilot, of course it would, what else had she expected? But she felt like she was losing her only friend, and the bitterness of that threatened to break her hearts.

* * *

Susan woke up and kissed the Master softly, feeling a degree of contentment that had been conspicuously absent for the last few days. She brushed a dark curl from his brow and felt something in her relax, just a bit. Koschei was worried and working on something, but he wasn't feeling the same level of conflict and jealousy that he had been.

As for the Master...

He was himself. Everything between them was still there, intact, just as it always had been, just as it was with Koschei. Her fear that somehow things wouldn't feel the same, that the differences were too great was gone. Things were starting to look up.

/Susan, Rose's been hurt, we're coming to you now,/ Koschei informed her and she slid from the bed and began grabbing up her clothes in haste. She could feel his spike of worry and upset and she moved as quickly as she could.

"Love! There's trouble, time to move," she told the Master, as she zipped herself up.

He was already moving, throwing on another jumpsuit from the medi-bay's locker.

"Who is Rose?" he asked.

"Grandfather's wife," she responded and then blinked at him. "You heard that?" Koschei had been broadcasting only to her, she'd thought.

"The Doctor is married?" He paused, staring at her, his hands on the zipper pull, but the zipper forgotten.

The sound of a TARDIS re-materializing split the air and she ran for the door.

* * *

A moment later, the Doctor came in, carrying a slight blonde Time Lady in his arms. He placed her on the medical bed and Susan went to work on her.

The Master stared at him. The energy was the same, a bit deeper and more complex, with vast grief and terrible anguish underlining everything in him, but he was still essentially the same as he'd always been since they were children. It was all coming back to him, as he looked at his oldest and best friend. He wanted to say something, but there were no words left in him suddenly.

"Master," the Doctor turned, nodded at him, then turned back, his face anguished, as he looked at the woman on the bed.

"Doctor," he choked out. Looking the Doctor's face made him feel uncomfortable. There was too much naked emotion there and he suddenly felt as though he was intruding. "I'll just… get out of the way," he muttered, and edged towards the door.

"Please don't," the Doctor asked softly. "I could use the company." He looked up and it was Theta, the little boy he'd played pranks with, the young man he'd laughed with, the best friend turned worst enemy, as he went mad. It was his friend, asking for his help. He was shocked into silence, struggling for words.

"If you like," he said at length. "You want something to drink? It may be a wait." He knew it was an inane question even as he said it, but he was completely at a loss just then. How do you apologize for hundreds of years of trying to kill someone? How do you cross the breach of years of dreadful plots, move past all the deaths, and the horror? What do you say to your best friend after everything you had put him through? He had no idea.

"No, I couldn't swallow," the Doctor sighed. He turned and finally really looked at him. "So, is this what you looked like during the War? I didn't know. I didn't meet you again until afterwards. It's not bad, suits you." he babbled. The Master winced, knowing that the inconsequential chatter was Theta's way of trying not to think about the pain he was in. He put his hand on the Doctor's arm.

"She's going to be all right. Susan will see to that." He wasn't sure where the comforting words had come from, but he was unutterably grateful for his brain having kicked out something useful this time.

"Yeah, she's brilliant, really," the Doctor said, nodding jerkily, his eyes filling with tears. "I just can't lose Rose, we've gone through so much..." He trailed off, looking at his wife, trembling with his fears.

The Master put an arm around his shoulder and the Doctor turned and buried his face in his shirt, shoulders shaking.

After everything, all the drama, the ranting, the monologues, the only thing left was his old friend, who needed him, and himself giving comfort. He held the Doctor as he wept and finally felt like he was doing something right.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - Rose

"You won't lose her. I would never let that happen," the Master said gently. He knew, from first-hand experience, how terrible it could be. The slender golden cord between the Doctor and Rose told him everything he needed to know. "And Susan wouldn't either. We're aboard a hospital TARDIS with the best doctor in this quadrant. Your wife will be fine."

"Best in the universe," Susan corrected softly as she worked. The Doctor and the Master stood nearby, the Doctor with his arms crossed and his shoulders hunched, looking like every moment that his wife was in pain was an agony for him as well.

He looked at Susan and understood completely. Even thinking about her lying still and cold, eyes vacant, made him shudder. The Doctor put an arm around his shoulders and looked at him.

"She died, Adie said," he murmured and the Master nodded jerkily, unable to speak for the unbearable pain of the memories. Susan looked up at him swiftly, her eyes shadowed and he fought to close those memories off from her.

"Yes," he finally croaked out. "She died."

"I'm so sorry," his oldest friend replied and he nodded, the fight to keep himself from distracting Susan, as she laboured to save Rose, giving him no energy to answer. "Things will be better now."

The Master turned that thought over in his head, trying it on for size and then nodded again, this time thoughtfully.

"Yes," he finally replied. "They will." After all, it occurred to him, after a hundred years feeling dead inside, anything had to be better. Susan huffed out her breath and her hands stilled.

"I've got her stabilized." She looked up and smiled at them both and the Doctor slumped in relief against the Master.

"Thank the stars," he muttered and the Master shook his arm gently.

"Go sit with her," he suggested and the Doctor nodded and staggered over to collapse in a chair beside his wife, holding her hand in his. Susan came over to the Master and hugged him.

"Nicely done," she told him with a smile and a kiss.

"We used to be friends," he mused softly, "A long, long time ago." He let himself dwell on their shared history for a long moment and then shook it off.

"We still are," the Doctor replied looking up at him with a weary smile and the Master nodded.

"Yes," he agreed and fell silent again, still rather stunned by the vast changes in his life.

* * *

Maureen-65, Nikki -69, Madison-17, Shevia-48 and Sky-52 moved through the woods in absolute silence. They were the five best scouts, the ones who had the best fighting skills, except for Diana-37, but she was the leader, so she couldn't come.

They had a sister being held captive by a group of hunters. This was no time to be reckless.

The five women looked at each other and their smiles in the pre-dawn light were fierce and terrifying.

In absolute silence, they sneaked into the camp.

When they were done, not a single hunter was still alive and six Mashas returned to the base camp.

* * *

Koschei crawled out from under the console of the Master's TARDIS with a sigh. There was a lot to repair, she'd been badly damaged in the crash and systems were faltering all over the ship.

An alarm buzzer went off and he looked around frantically, trying to figure out where it was coming from. A light flashed in the darkened lab and he frowned.

He stood and edged forward, towards the dark hulking machinery, following the flickering light, and then bent over to peer into a crystalline tube.

Inside, looking up at him was a pair of acid yellow eyes, blinking slowly. The figure had been pounding on the interior surface of the container, trying to attract his attention. Seeing him standing over her, a small delicate hand reached up and splayed against the clear surface, and he put his own hand against the same spot.

"Adie!" he shouted. "I found the Mashas!" He quickly began the sequence to get her out. The faltering systems were diverting power from the stasis tubes and if he didn't work fast, they would all suffocate inside. There were five more inhabited tubes, stacked against the lab's wall, like firewood. He swore and began running between them, trying to cycle them out.

/Susan!/ he shouted. /I really need help!/

/The Master is on his way!/ she sent back.

The sound of running feet answered him and Adie came in, sprinting up from the bowels of engineering, where she had been working.

"What the hell?" she gasped and then dived in; taking over with two of the cycles, while Koschei kept working on the other three.

They worked in silence, just the sound of their breathing and the slap of shoes on the decking breaking into the rising beep of the alarms.

Koschei pulled open the first one to be finished and lifted the girl out, setting her on the floor.

"Hold on, I've got to get your sisters out!" he told her and dived back in.

"I've got one out!" Adie told him and the sound of the alarms was rising in pitch. "They're out of air, this one is unconscious!"

"Faster!" Koschei shouted, as he watched the second unit's status bar shade to red.

"It won't go any faster!" She called back, as one of the clones in Koschei's tubes suddenly collapsed into unconsciousness.

"What's happening?" the freed Masha asked him.

"They're suffocating!" he told her, stabbing at the controls trying to get it to cycle faster.

"Right!" the Masha told him and stepped forward, grabbed the lid, and wrenched it open, like she was pulling open a soda can.

"Or, we can do it her way," Adie murmured in open-mouthed awe.

"Two more!" Koschei told her and she repeated the process twice more, while he and Adie lifted out the other girls. The last one lay in Koschei's arms, as if she was unconscious, except her eyes were open.

Adie gave him a meaningful look, and then gathered the others. The two conscious ones were holding their unconscious siblings.

"Right, medi-bay, come on, follow me!" She headed out and the others followed, leaving Koschei alone in the room with the last clone.

She lay like a dishrag in his arms, her eyes blank and flat, unseeing. He reached for her mind, but there was nothing there. She was looking up at him with a trusting face, her mind as unformed as an infants. He just rocked her gently, humming softly to her, hoping that he could find a way to fix her.

* * *

"The next one doesn't open for three days," Jake explained patiently and Devorah-4 nodded. He'd known soldiers like her before, the ones who'd been fighting for so long that they didn't even know why they were doing it anymore, but didn't know anything else either.

"Fine. We'll just have to find a fortified position," she replied in her low gravelly voice. She'd had her throat slit at some point and she'd healed up fast, like all the Mashas did, but her voice was several octaves deeper than the others now.

"What's your suggestion?" he asked. She was canny and cool, Devorah, and he trusted her military judgement implicitly.

"The ridge, it's got water, shelter, and a good view of the surrounding area," she pointed out and he nodded.

"All right. All we have to do it hold out for three days," he murmured and then sighed gustily. The reset on this Loop would be around in another four hours, so the ridge was their best option, unless they wanted to be here when the tanks rolled through again.

"Amazons! To the ridge!" he called and they all rose and began packing.

"Twenty-three," Diana murmured to him with a smile and he chuckled.

"Almost two years," he replied a trifle grimly. He missed Gallifrey, he missed Torchwood, and he missed his friends, but, as he looked at the Amazons, he knew he wouldn't have passed this up for the universe.

"Move out!" Diana shouted and they all hefted their packs and marched forward. Three days of camping, he thought to himself, not too bad.

* * *

The Master came running into the lab and stopped. His other self was sitting on the floor, cradling one of the clones in his arms. He was the version from Miranda's photo, he realized suddenly. Blond and blue-eyed, and much shorter now, he was holding the girl with a gentleness that made the Master slow and stop in confusion, conflicting impulses in his head.

"Susan said we lost power?" He looked around at the lab and the damaged tubes, and frowned "What happened?"

"They were suffocating and we had to get them out, but there's something wrong with this one," Koschei replied, blinking up at him.

"It's all right. They don't suffer brain damage from hypoxia until the fourth minute," he said as he knelt down by the clone, and checked her pulse. "No, she's fine, there should be some other storage units around here somewhere," he got up again and headed purposefully to a series of wall-mounted containers.

"She's not fine, she's brain-dead or something," Koschei pointed out.

He waved a hand in the air absent-mindedly, checking over the other containers.

"I reset her earlier," he said and then paused, realizing that there was something wrong with that.

"You what?" Koschei was staring at... himself really, in horror. "Let's leave aside how incredibly unethical that is, but Susan will go spare when she finds out, so let's fix this before she gets back," he suggested.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," the Master said, moving to the wall where he had a number of storage units stacked.

"What are you talking about?" Koschei was looking at him like he had sprouted another head and the Master was feeling vaguely ashamed about the whole thing.

"It won't affect the Lens firing, only the Locus requires consciousness." he turned around to look at his other self. "Susan mentioned that you know Adie's location?"

"She's in Medi-bay, taking care of the Mashas," Koschei replied and it was weird for the Master to see himself from the outside. The mannerisms, the tilt of the head, it was too much himself, like looking into a mirror after regeneration and seeing the same expressions on a new face.

"Master, look at the girl in my arms and try to think about her from the standpoint of decency and compassion," Koschei told him through gritted teeth. "She's a person, so please let's reverse whatever you did to her."

"I am the Master!" he scowled at his other self. "I don't have a decent, compassionate bone in my…" But he thought of Susan suddenly, and his scowl changed.

"Try to remember that you are lying to yourself over here," Koschei chuckled. "Now, let's fix her, please! Before Susan finds out and goes all ginger on us!"

"Susan probably wouldn't like it, that's true," he mused. "Why don't we upload a nice starting imprint for her, I am sure I have one around here somewhere…" He was struggling with himself. Susan wouldn't like it, but this was the Rat, the problems he'd had with her again and again. But... in Koschei's arms she looked small, frail, and terribly vulnerable.

"No. We need her original personality, the one you took out of her. She is a person, you!" Koschei argued, sounding exasperated..

"I know that!" he spit out. He could see it. The girl was lying right there, looking helpless, looking like Susan had when he'd carried her from the Tower. "But, I don't know how to make her behave! There is an exponential curve involved and, if we do not set up the Lens for the Manifold, there's going to be no stopping them! We cannot have her sabotaging our every move!"

"And if you explain that to her, she'll listen, and she'll help!" he snapped back. "Try reasoning with her, instead of torturing her, and you might get some better results!"

"Or we could leave her exactly as she is and upload her personality after we fire the Lens! Adie is the only one who needs to be conscious!" he protested.

"Or we could keep your balls attached and fix her, before Susan finds out what you did, not to mention the other Mashas, who will happily lynch you when they see this!" he pointed out, growing exasperated. "Omega! Why does she put up with me?"

The Master sighed deeply. The truth was that he would have done anything for Susan, even this, but he couldn't help but feel he was cutting his own throat. He could see that what he'd done was wrong, despite it all, but he was scared. He was worried that the Rat would go for his throat and that he'd end up having to kill her. Susan would really not understand that.

"Fine," he conceded, going over to the bins. "Not this one… not this one… I know it is in here somewhere… ha, this is it." He inclined his head at the sarcophagus that filled up one corner of the room. "That's the data transference interface, I'll load up the crystals.

"Bloody hell, didn't you even put in surge protectors?" Koschei gasped and pulled out a laser screwdriver and went to work.

"I didn't see there was a need, once we had ensured they couldn't feel pain," he mused, loading up the crystals into their slots.

"It has to scare the hell out of them, having lighting rocketing around in their brains," Koschei grumbled and then started readjusting the interior, adding padding to it. "Don't you remember? We learned all this to help people! I became an engineer to build things that would make people's lives better!" Koschei's voice was strained and sad and the Master paused, the last crystal in his hands, feeling a sudden sense of shock.

The thought of the clones being scared had literally not occurred to him before this moment and he knew it should have. As for the childhood dreams, he hadn't remembered them in a very long time.

"I was young and stupid," he mumbled, but he didn't really believe it. He recalled the boy he'd been, running through the tall red grass of Gallifrey with the Doctor, dreaming of a better life, with an almost painful feeling of longing.

"No, we were ourselves back then, not Rassilon's lap dog!" The sorrow in his other self's voice, the guilt, and the deep wells of regret just rolled out. "I wanted to make things that would make the universe brighter and better. Then Rassilon got in my head and ripped me apart, remade me... remade us. This is not who you are! This is the leftover bits of that bastard in your head."

"I don't know… who I am now. After Susan died, I wasn't anybody anymore," he muttered, setting the crystal down and feeling a bit dizzy suddenly.

"I know. When we were in separate universes and I thought she was dead... nothing mattered anymore." Koschei took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I'm sorry. You've barely had time to think, it's not fair of me to take that out on you. It took me years to fight free of it all," Koschei sighed and walked over to him, putting a hand on his arm. "Let's put her back together and then we can deal with the Manifold. After that, there will be time to think about what all this means, okay?"

"I'm reversing the charge, you ready?" the Master asked him, instead of answering. He had too many new thoughts in his head, too many painful pressures. He also felt a little guilty about falling into bed with Susan. This was her husband, her bondmate, and he was uncomfortable standing there with him after... well, after.

Koschei set the girl inside of the device, gently folding her arms over her chest and brushing the hair from her eyes.

"It's going to be okay, little one," he told her soothingly and her blank incurious gaze on him was trusting and sweet. The Master felt a bit like a monster, the girl was so tiny and defenceless. What had he done?

"Uploading. It's going to take a few minutes." He paused. "Tell me you didn't just rip out the cooling systems."

"Of course not, I shifted them so that they weren't right up against the heat exchange port, it reduced their efficiency to have them there," he replied with a frown.

"Huh, should have done that myself, I don't know why I didn't think of it… all right, initiating cooling." In the sarcophagus, the girl's aura began to glow, as her personality was brought back into her head. The glow became very bright very quickly, and her temperature started to spike dramatically. The cooling systems helped to counteract some of the excess heat, but it was still possible to feel it pouring off of her in waves. He worked to counter it, feeling a touch of worry for the girl that he hadn't expected.

Koschei blinked.

"Is this the 'Rat'?" he asked suddenly and the Master turned and frowned at him.

"You didn't know?" he asked. "Yes, it's why I was reluctant to bring her back."

"Actually, I was hoping to meet her," he murmured and the Master watched him start dumping the waste heat into the TARDIS systems, using it to help get the environmental controls up and running better.

"You're going to get your wish, if we can get the upload to take without burning her out," his hands were constantly playing over the controls, trying to keep her temperature low enough to prevent her from burning up completely. "If we can make it for the next two minutes, we'll be fine."

Koschei nodded and ran out of the room. He came back carrying a cooling blanket, the sort used for fever patients and ran over to the sarcophagus, dropping it over the Rat, and activating it.

"Try this," he murmured.

"Good idea." The next two minutes were very touch-and-go. The Master worked with the cooling controls, spitting and swearing, while the girl's aura glowed brilliantly. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at Koschei, just as the Master shut the process down.

"Complete," he said and stepped back a bit, nervous that she might lunge at him.

* * *

"Hey," Koschei leaned over her with a smile. "You okay? Your sisters are in Medi-bay, but Adie says they'll be fine. I'm Koschei," he introduced himself.

She looked back and forth between him and the Master. Her eyes were much brighter than the other clones, and when she turned her head, Koschei could see the jack she had installed behind her left ear.

"I take it things have run off the rails?" she asked, her eyes watchful.

"It's a total train wreck," Koschei agreed with a smile. "We're in it up to our hips and things are ... fluid." He extended a hand to her to help her up. She looked surprised at the courtesy, but allowed him to help her up.

"You need me," she said, and it wasn't a question. "No, that's not right, you need the Lens… you need the Lens." She scowled at the Master.

"Yes," he replied, looking down at the controls, "We need the Lens."

"Well, eventually yes, but right now, I am more concerned about you. How are you feeling? Any memory loss, are you feeling seated?" Koschei asked, running the sonic over her. She seemed all right, but she was an inherently unstable construction and the strain of her personality being ripped out of her and then replaced could be problematic.

"By definition I will be unaware of memory loss," she pointed out to him, but her eyes twinkled in amusement. "Seating seems sound."

"No, you'd have memory gaps, trust me on that one," he teased. "I'm glad though. Have you seen Masha-37 or Jake, by the way?" He was still worried about them.

She held up a hand.

"No, no, wait please, I am behind the times. I was informed one of you had been put away and then came back. I gather an alliance is in place?"

"We're all working together, yes," Koschei replied. "He's the alternate timeline version, I'm Susan's husband," he explained. "The Rani left behind a really big problem, one that threatens a lot of lives, and we're all trying to stop it."

"Thus you need the Lens, and thus you need me?"

"Well, we do need the Lens, but honestly, I just wanted to meet you," Koschei muttered, looking a bit flustered. "To be able to hack your own QTE, that was really impressive. I liked that."

"It was damned dangerous!" The Master broke in angrily. "What the bloody hell did you think you were doing! You could have fried your brain! You also could have torn a hole in the timeline with your node creations!"

"Hey!" Koschei soothed. "She'd been tortured and imprisoned! Whatever she did to escape, to survive, it was understandable!"

The Master stilled and looked at Koschei as though he'd never considered that before. He grabbed a spanner, went over to a console, and began working on repairs, his brows drawn down as he thought. The girl watched him go with a pensive expression.

"I'm sorry, he's still recovering. What can I call you, since 'Rat' seems a bit rude," Koschei asked softly.

"We all chose names for ourselves. My name is Tomoko-6," she told him. She sounded a bit defensive, as though she wasn't sure that he wouldn't laugh, so he made sure to smile and nod.

"Pleased to meet you, Tomoko-6," he told her and reached out to shake her hand.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12- The Bargain

Tomoko shook Koschei's hand. Her face was bright and interested, but she looked over at where the Master was working and frowned.

"I was told there was a bondmate in the picture. So is the bondmate… now bonded to the both of you? And because of that," she frowned at the Master, "You suddenly have decided to walk the straight and narrow? For her sake?"

"Didn't Masha... uh, 37, explain to you about what Rassilon did to us? What is she calling herself now, by the way?" Koschei asked.

"She took the name Diana, after someone called, 'Wonder Woman.'" She looked back at Koschei and her eyes twinkled at him. "And have you ever heard her try to explain something?"

He snorted, suddenly rather amused at the mental picture that evoked.

"Yes... Right. Let me try. At eight, Rassilon got into my... our head and rewired us. Just like having that thing upload a new personality," he said, pointing to the sarcophagus. "Only it didn't re-write me entirely, I was still in there, underneath it all, able to see what I was doing, but not able to stop myself. When Rassilon died, it all came apart, but everything I was ... it was still part of me to some extent. I am trying to get my head straight, to get my brain back, but it's not easy, when I can't always trust what I think. Susan sorts things for me, points out which bits are really me and which are leftover junk." He shrugged. "Now, she's sorting for us both." He glanced at the Master and sighed. "He's not trying to 'walk the straight and narrow for her', he's trying to learn how to think straight again."

Tomoko stood quietly, mulling that over for a long moment and then nodded at some notion in her head.

"Noted," she said at last, and turned to the Master. "I want to know your current intentions towards us and towards the Lens."

"We're going to fire the Lens at the Manifold, that's all. After that, I have no intentions towards you at all," he replied and he sounded tired and a bit lost. "I don't know what I'll do after that."

"I want all the data on the Manifold," she requested and he spun and looked at her in surprise.

"Why would you even need it? We just have to destroy it," he replied, looking off-balance.

"Because I want to evaluate, for myself, that this is the right thing to do," Tomoko explained and the Master nodded slowly.

"You don't trust me, no reason to, after all," he murmured.

"If you want me to keep my end of the bargain, I require data input. No lies, no deceptions, no cover ups, and no omissions. I need to be the one to make the call."

"What bargain?" The Master paused in his work and looked baffled.

"The one you are about to make with me."

"I am?" He was staring at her, like she was speaking gibberish.

"Yes," she told him, while Koschei watched their byplay in amusement.

"What bargain?" the Master nearly wailed, looking utterly flummoxed.

"For my part, I will organize the Mashas, guarantee they won't hurt you, and will make sure that, if we decide it's the right call, we are in place for the needed Lens shot for this Manifold." He was watching her like he waiting for her to hit him, or for the other shoe to drop.

"And what do you want from me?" he asked warily.

"For the present, I expect you to provide me with all necessary data and logistical information," she said. "For the future… the day will come when the Mashas are going to demand some sort of... justice."

"Justice?" he barked a laugh and it was a bitter sound. "Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it? I'd like some justice myself," he replied. "I'd like to have my life back, I'd like my Susan not to have died, I'd like to have the bastards responsible for all of this in front of me, so I could beat them all to death."

Koschei looked at his other self and nodded. He understood completely. He'd like his mother not to have killed herself when he was little, or his father not to have been a bastard. He'd like to not have been driven mad. There was never going to be justice for them though. They'd have to go without.

* * *

Tomoko stared at the Master. For all that Diana-37 had told her about Koschei, she hadn't really grasped what it would mean. The Master wasn't the madman she was used to dealing with. He was looking at her like she was real, like she was a person, and that was radically different than the old him.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling stunned that she could see their side of the issue with such dazzling clarity. The Master was as much a victim as she had been, more so, in fact, because she'd been allowed the means to resist and he hadn't. The Master had suffered for so long, without ever receiving the sort of justice that she was asking of him.

However, the plain fact was that she was between a rock and a hard place. Without some sort of token to appease the rest of the group, the Master was going to end up strung up by his thumbs. Too many of the Mashas were bitter, angry, and longed for revenge against the man they saw as the author of their suffering. If she walked back into the stone igloo and told them the Master wasn't going to be held responsible for what they had gone through, she'd lose the lot of them.

"One day I am going to send you a message with a time and coordinates," she said finally, thinking furiously. "You're going to show up there, alone, and stay there until… matters are settled. That's the price of making sure the Mashas don't so much as harm a hair on your head. It'll prevent a lynch mob and it's the best I can do for now."

He sighed and shrugged, looking resigned and very tired.

"This is the price required to save her...everyone's lives?" the Master asked.

"Yes," she answered and had a moment where she felt a spurt of pity for him. The disconnect of that was nearly painful and she grimaced.

He was silent for a while.

"So be it. I agree." He said it like he was accepting his own execution and she sighed, hoping that it wouldn't come to that.

"Good. Data, please," she asked, feeling strangely sympathetic towards him and nearly laughing at her own impulse to shield and protect the crazed monster who'd tortured her for so long.

* * *

/Susan is not going to be happy about that last bit,/ Koschei sent to the Master. /She's rather protective of us./

/What else could I do? We need their cooperation to fire the Lens! You're the one who said she could be reasoned with. How else can we save Susan?/

/Susan will go spare if they hurt you, that's all I'm saying, / Koschei sighed out.

"Was Diana okay when you last saw her?" Koschei asked Tomoko, trying to lower the tension in the room.

"I held back Diana-37 when we made our last raid. I felt it was nearly certain that the Master would attempt to capture us physically. Realistically, we had absolutely no way to stop him. Diana-37 was to be the backup agent, and if we were killed or captured, she was to continue the Revolution."

"Good, I was really worried about her," he said and smiled. "I'll assume you left before Jake got there, then."

"I never met anyone named Jake...wasn't he Diana-37's partner, when she held a job at Torchwood on Gallifrey? How would he have gotten in?"

"Adie sent him into the Loops after her, when Diana didn't pick up her packages," he explained.

"Adyra did that?" the Master interrupted. "I thought that was ... Tomoko."

"No, Adie and I were the ones who opened the portal in. He was worried about her. I think that his feelings run much more deeply than just being her partner," Koschei murmured, flushing a bit. He'd have had to be stupid not to see it, but he didn't like to speculate when no one had said anything to him.

"Really? She was quite head over heels for him." She was frowning in concentration. "Is he a decent man? This Jake fellow?"

"He's much better than that," Koschei assured her. "He's honest, brave, and cool-headed. He's one of my very few friends."

"Good. I had hoped she would have the sense to select someone of quality." Tomoko beamed at him.

"I think the selecting was fairly mutual," Koschei chuckled. "He doesn't fall easily, but he falls pretty hard."

The Master snorted from the other room.

"As fascinating as this all is, can we deal with the threat to all life everywhere and leave people's love lives for later?" he requested with a frown.

"Right, sorry," Koschei agreed and handed a tablet to Tomoko. "Here's the data on the Manifold. You can see that she didn't put any replication limits on them at all, barmy cow," he grumbled.

She took the tablet and scanned through it rapidly.

"Wait. These are all recursive fractals… there's a point of… what… this doesn't make any… what was she doing? She must have been as mad as a hatter!"

"I'd have to agree," Koschei nodded. "She also put no size limitations on them, and look at the intelligence readings at the larger sizes!"

"They used mercury to make the felt for hats, by the way," mused Tomoko absent-mindedly, as she paged through the data. "The hatters. That is why they all went mad; mercury poisoning… wow, that is quite a jump… but I could see it, each individual unit has a certain amount of processing power, put them together and eventually…" She shook her head. "You break the sentience barrier. We broke it with time; they have broken it with size."

"The First Emperor of China ate mercury, trying to gain immortality, it drove him crazy as well," Koschei agreed. "Well, you all started out as clones of the Doctor's niece, so you were bound to end up brilliant, one way or another." He looked up at her with a sweet, somewhat shy smile and then ducked back down. "It was inevitable."

"Wait… that girl is the Doctor's niece?" The Master barked out, staring at Koschei in horror and dismay.

"Yeah, Brax's youngest, you didn't guess? All those years with her and you never noticed?" Koschei stared at him in shock. "She's just like the Doctor at that age... except, much nicer."

"No wonder the entire thing has been buggered from the get-go!" the Master scowled.

"Well, if you're going to use a member of that family, with all that they are, you are going to have to assume that probability is not going to remain within normal levels," Koschei shrugged.

"She was foisted off on me! Part of her punishment for double crossing the Seers and after her role in Susan's death…" but he bit back the rest of his sentence.

"Please! Are you really that naive? Rassilon, do anything for just one reason? Besides, she told us all that up front." He waved a hand. "But Rassilon obviously wanted her for more than just that reason."

"By 'that girl', are you referring to Number 2, Adie, the girl that Diana-37 was telling me about? Tomoko asked.

"Yes, that's her. Adyra," Koschei replied with a nod.

"I see. Now, please tell me about Rassilon?" asked Tomoko, with an arched brow.

"Over a billion years old, one of the three founders of modern Time Lord Society, a brilliant engineer, and crazy as a bag full of weasels," Koschei told her. "One of those people who plays chess three hundred moves ahead and has a back-up plan for his back-up plans, but who isn't quite rational enough to realize that he can't control everything. He never seemed to understand that other people might be real and feel things."

Tomoko was silent for a while, considering this.

"Think he could have been the person in the number one slot?' She asked Koschei thoughtfully.

"If it meant being the one in charge, then I would have to assume that, yes. Rassilon never saw himself as number 2," Koschei agreed.

"No, I think it is more than that… I mean, mathematically more. The Lens is a mathematical construct, and I think that the number one and two slots are parallel or related concepts somehow. But, I don't know how to do the maths; it's this special block transfer computation… I don't know, it's like it is at the tip of my fingertips, but I don't quite have the grasp to catch it."

"When Rose recovers, she can do the maths for us, she's a Computationist," he informed Tomoko.

"All right… you say the others are in Medi-bay? I am going to head there, make sure they are all right," Tomoko pocketed Koschei's tablet and headed out of the room.

Koschei shrugged, letting the fact that she'd nicked it pass, and looked at the Master.

"So, still alive and reason wins the day," he murmured and gave his other self a light shake. "Now I just need to keep you alive, so my wife doesn't cry."

"You really think that was a win?"

"Are you alive? Are they going to help? Then, yes, a win," he sighed. "Or as much of one as we can get out of this mess right now."

The Master was silent for a while.

"When they gave me this project, I thought about just telling that pompous windbag 'no' and taking the consequences, maybe joining Susan," he moved to one of the consoles that needed repair and grumbled as he removed a plate from it. "I'm sorry I ever started it at all."

"He couldn't have killed you anyway, we were essential to his plan to escape the Time Lock, the bloody drumbeat was his lock-on signal, so he could anchor through us and pull his arse to safety. The wanker." Koschei's tone was bitter and he was frowning deeply.

"It was? That explains a lot," He was silent for a long time. "Did Susan..." He sounded almost shy, "... really feel it when I woke up?"

"Yes, even before I did," he admitted, feeling a bit shy himself.

He was silent for a long while, working on the console with Koschei.

"Are… you all right with all of this?" the Master asked finally. After all, he'd slept with the man's bonded wife, if their positions were reversed, there would probably be weapons involved.

"All right with it?" Koschei chuckled mirthlessly. "Of course not." Koschei raised his head to look at the Master and wondered if his conflicted emotions were as easy to read on his face as the Master's own. "The thing is, if I tried to be an arse and make her choose, all I'd do is tear her apart. I can't do that. I have caused her enough pain already. You're bound to her and so am I, so we just need to work this out."

"Work out what, exactly? I was sort of envisioning that whatever she wanted would go."

"Pretty much, yeah." he laughed. "But you and me, we need to be okay with this. With sharing her. Because if we get upset, angry, resentful, or jealous, she'll feel it, and it'll hurt her. I've hurt her enough. I don't think I could bear it if I caused her any more unhappiness." He looked at the Master. "We've got to be friends, or she'll feel it, you understand?"

"Friends?" the Master stared at his other self and then a wry smile twisted his lips. "If you'd asked me last week, I'd have told you that I was incapable of friendship."

"Yes, I remember feeling that way," Koschei replied softly. "But, this week?"

"I saw Theta crying over his wife and I ... remembered." The confession came out very nearly in a whisper and Koschei snorted in bitter amusement.

"Yes, he has that effect."

"Friends...,"

They studied each other, Koschei with all the history of that previous body there in his own memories. He knew the other him, had been him, at one point and felt a surge of sympathy for the other version of himself. He'd seen the pathetic little box, with the carefully preserved remnants of a Susan who had died. He knew what it was to hold her in his hearts, to have her Song inside of him, and then to have it go silent, to lose that connection that was everything to him.

"You remember Miranda," he replied, a statement, not a question. The shirt and neckties would not have been in that box with her robe, if he hadn't.

"When she died, as she was fading... it all came back to me," the Master replied and the bleak expression, the way his energy went flat and grey, it was like a hammer blow on Koschei's psyche. He could all too easily imagine it, the wrenching feeling of loss and despair, and then the memories pouring into his mind, the promises, the bright glorious future, all of it snuffed out at once.

He was across the room, his arms around his other self, before he realized it, and the Master was burying his face in his shirt, shaking as the agony of his loss washed over him. He was falling apart, but he wrenched away from Koschei with an unhappy sound.

"No, I don't deserve..." he whispered and Koschei looked at him and understood. He understood all of it. He saw, from the outside, everything Susan had been saying to him.

"You do, actually," he answered, but he was talking as much to himself as to the Master. "We were always being shoved away. Father always finding us wanting, and then Mother, suicide is the ultimate abandonment, after all. Even the Doctor and the Lady Professor turned their backs on us. Everyone always gave up on us, even we did," he sighed out.

"She never did," the Master replied and looked up at him. They stared at each other and Koschei nodded very slowly.

"No, she didn't. Not once. Susan stood up to Rassilon for me, withstood pressure and torture to protect me, was willing to die for me. She suffered and now I cannot make her suffer anymore. I can't be selfish, I can't hurt her anymore. So, can you help me keep her from any more pain? You up to that? Can you help me make her happy?" Koschei asked, staring at his other self and seeing the great ragged rents in the fabric of his being.

"Omega, I sure as hell hope so," he muttered.

"You're me and I'm you, after all," Koschei chuckled after a moment. "It's not like I'd be sharing her with another man, exactly." He said with a frown. "I'm sharing her with myself. We'll just have to work to make this go smoothly. I never want her to feel like she has to choose, or that she's being pulled in two directions. We need to work together, okay?"

"Agreed." He paused. "What do you need me to do? Specifically?"

"She's not hard to make happy, really. In fact, I'd say she's far too content with far too little. She needs a certain amount of reassurance. Being raised by the Doctor has left her thinking that she's not all that special. So, tell her you adore her as often as you can. She loves to cook and she's really good at it, it's one of the few areas she's actually secure, so eat what she cooks for you, without complaining that you have work to do. She doesn't like it when people argue and fight, or when she thinks she's making someone unhappy, so let's work out our problems calmly, and lastly, she's lost a lot of people and she's rather nervous about us, so, try not to die," he shrugged. "The last one is actually the hardest."

"Especially with the Manifold," he snarked.

"Yes, we should probably get to that." Koschei paused again, trying to find the right words. "I love her, she's everything to me, so, please, be gentle with her, okay?"

"Always," he said simply. The two versions of the same man nodded at each other and went to repair the TARDIS.

* * *

"Moira-3," Diana-37 called. The woman who loped over to her looked visibly older than the rest of them. Moira-3's Loop had had one of the fastest Loops they'd been in so far. Even though it had a reset of only six days of time, a week had passed in her Loop, while only three days had passed in the Dust Loop. By Tomoko Construct's estimate, Moira-3 was almost two thousand years old

"Aye?" she asked, her eyes as fathomless and ancient as the Doctor's. She'd grown her hair out long, until it was a thick braided rope behind her, her clothes were scavenged from whatever she could find in the mountainous region where her Loop's war had taken place. The woven garments were ones she'd made on her own, having to carry the loom on her back to keep it from resetting every six days.

"Any ideas?" she asked and passed the binoculars to her. Diana-37 had gotten them from the Shadow Architect what seemed like a really long time ago, one of the many goodies she'd run off with.

Moira-3 raised the binoculars to her eyes and studied the massed army that was gathered on the plain beneath them. The bridge to the next Loop was going to be showing up in two hours, on the other side of that army.

"I say we just knock down everything in our way," Moira-3 said calmly. "Protect the boy, though, he's a mite fragile."

Diana-37 nodded, glad that Jake hadn't heard Moira-3 call him 'the boy'. He was easy-going, but he'd earned the respect of most of the others. Moira-3 though, didn't seem to grasp that he was real yet, she'd spent so long in the Loop, that the rest of the universe was just a dim memory to her.

Sophie-24 raised an eyebrow at her and Diana-37 nodded back, glad she wasn't the only one who had noted the problem.

What were they going to do with them all, once they were free of the Loops? The question was starting to haunt Diana-37's dreams.

* * *

The Doctor sat by Rose's bedside, holding her hand and watching the monitors on her vitals. He was feeling as though there was nothing worth doing, if she wasn't there to do it with him.

"I miss you, love," he sighed out, stroking his thumb across the back of her hand. "Its just no fun without you."

"Well," she murmured softly. "Can't have that, can we?" He blinked and looked up and Rose, her brown eyes shining, was looking back at him.

"Rose!" he cried. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got attacked by a giant metal insect, why?" she asked and smiled somewhat blearily at him. He started laughing.

"I've missed you," he sighed.

"So you said. Me, I've missed chips!" she told him and he jumped up.

"I shall fetch them for you instantly, my Lady," he assured her with a sweeping bow and she grinned.

"Thank you, love," she replied and he shook his head, knowing what she was really thanking him for.

"No, thank you love, for coming back to me."

"Forever," she murmured and with a smile, he went to fetch her chips.

* * *

Susan grabbed her winter coat and ran for the Master's TARDIS, very much worried about the Master's safety where the Mashas were concerned.

She pushed into the console room and saw two pairs of legs sticking out from under the console and she nearly laughed aloud. Typical, she thought to herself.

"Hello dears, Rose is doing fine now," she announced.

"Thank Omega," Koschei replied. "I'm really glad to hear that." Susan squatted down between the two pairs of legs and peered under the console.

"How are things here?"

The Master didn't say anything, but she saw him nudge Koschei.

"We seem to have a truce with the Mashas," Koschei answered, as he crawled out from under the console. He pulled her down and kissed her softly. "Hello dear." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back thoroughly, making sure he knew that she loved him completely, second version of him about or not.

"What sort of truce?" she asked, when she finally drew back.

"Master? Would you care to explain?" Koschei suggested.

"Um… no, not really," he sighed, but crawled out from under the console. "We've agreed to a… meeting to be affixed at a later date." He glanced at her, where she was sitting, entwined in Koschei's arms and then looked away quickly. Susan felt the sharp pinch of his pain and twitched unhappily.

"What kind of meeting?" Susan asked and reached out to take his hand in hers, while her other arm remained around Koschei. "What about?" His pain eased and he gave her a look filled with irony.

"'Justice,' apparently, whatever that means."

Susan's felt a frisson of fear move through her and held his hand even more tightly.

"What kind of justice can they possibly want? Rassilon is the one at fault here and he's dead and gone," she insisted. Koschei pulled her closer comfortingly.

"We don't know, but I don't think that they will kill him, or anything like that," he assured her.

"How could you possibly know that?" The Master was feeling stressed and sounded like it.

Susan's hearts stuttered and she was breathing fast, as she suddenly was faced with the prospect of the Mashas trying to execute the Master. She jumped to her feet, wondering if she was going to lose him.

"Because they're nice people," Koschei told the Master through gritted teeth. He stood up and put a hand on her cheek. "It'll be okay," he assured her.

* * *

/For Omega's sake, stop scaring her,/ Koschei snapped at the Master. /Can't you see that she's terrified!/

/...Sorry. I guess… I'm not very good at this./

Koschei resisted the urge to smack the other him and reminded himself that he'd barely been free of Rassilon for a week.

/Hold her, kiss her, and tell her it will all be all right,/ he sent back more gently.

The Master obviously felt bad when he saw the look on Susan's face. Her eyes were wide and her face was very pale. He stepped up to her and put his arm around her gently, kissing her a bit awkwardly with Koschei standing right there.

"Don't worry," he soothed. "I am sure it will be fine." She put both her arms around him, holding him tightly, still looking like she was expecting someone to carry him off at any instant.

"Susan, Masha wouldn't let them, you know that," Koschei reassured her, rubbing her back. "She's a good friend and the other Mashas are also kind, decent people. It's okay, they'll probably just want an explanation, or some sort of apology, all right?" Susan nodded silently against the Master, but she still didn't look very happy.

"I'm not sure I'd be able to stop Her, if they tried to hurt him," she whispered and Koschei snapped his mouth shut as the realization of that hit him.

Somehow, he always managed to forget about the Arkytior.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 - What's in a Name?

The Doctor and Rose came in then, Rose moving slowly and looking pale. The Doctor was supporting her, one arm around her and she bundled up like an Eskimo.

"Rose!" Susan protested. "You should still be resting!"

"That's what I told her," the Doctor agreed, but Rose rolled her eyes at them both and shook her head.

"Universe needs saving, no time to sleep," she insisted and then turned to look at Koschei and the Master.

"Feeling better?" Koschei asked and she moved forward and hugged him, while the Master blinked in surprise.

"Yeah, I'm good. How are you?" she asked and Koschei grinned and stepped back, turning to introduce the Master to her.

"Rose, this is my alternate universe self. Self, this is Rosemallatheragwynethtyler, a most brilliant Block Transfer Mathematician and my very dear friend," he murmured with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Oh! Hello! You two really are just alike energetically," Rose exclaimed.

"Though goodness, you're tall! You look nothing alike physically, I mean you look a little like that fellow who plays Sherlock, but not at all like Koschei. That's probably good, because I think it would get really confusing if you both looked exactly alike. I hope that alternate universe version, or not, we'll be best mates too, eh?" she told the Master with a broad grin and he blinked at her feeling like someone had turned a spotlight on him. He could instantly see why Theta liked her, she was brilliantly bright, filled with such warmth and kindness that it was hard not to just start smiling at her and she was looking up at him with an expression of appealing hopefulness that flummoxed him completely.

"I'm ... pleased to meet you?" he stammered. "I'm the Master," he added, realizing that Koschei had neglected to mention his name.

"We'll need to do something about that, too," Rose sighed. "I am not calling you 'the Master' like you're some bloody panto actor, it's just silly. Bad enough I have to call my husband 'Doctor'," she complained. "We'll simply have to come up with something better than that."

"Well, Koschei is already using that name," Susan pointed out. "I mean that is their real name, but, it'll get a bit confusing for people if they're both Koschei." The Master frowned, not liking the direction this conversation was going.

"I'm Koschei as well and I am not giving up my name if the Doctor isn't giving up his!" he insisted, feeling as though he was being stripped away of everything he'd thought was his rather quickly.

"Not fair! You know why I can't give up mine!" the Doctor protested and Koschei looked between them both rather uncertainly, as though not sure what side he was supposed to be on.

"Fine, I'll call you Sherlock," Rose decided and Susan shook her head.

"No!" the Master disagreed.

"No, certainly not 'Sherlock'," Susan insisted.

"Fine, what about 'Benedict'," Rose suggested. "He looks like a Benedict." Koschei was frowning, as was Susan, neither of them happy about this choice either.

"Absolutely not. I don't see why I need a new name at all!" the Master pointed out. "Koschei worked fine." He and Koschei looked at each other and he could tell his other self understood. Miranda had called him 'Koschei', that was part of it all.

"What about something from your family?" Susan suggested hesitantly. "I can still call you both Koschei if you like, but for everyone else, do you have any ancestors you liked?" She looked rather unhappy and it made his hearts twinge to see it. "Rose, please stop bullying him, I know you don't mean it like that, but give him some space."

"Sorry," Rose sighed. "I don't mean to steam roll you, Koschei Two, but you really can't go wandering around Gallifrey calling yourself "the Master", it'll drive Adred up a wall, not to mention Romana, or Terrilian." He words forcibly reminded him of all the reasons why he thought going back to Gallifrey was a very bad idea and he opened his mouth to say that, when Koschei interrupted.

"What about Guinntaschei, I liked him," his other self suggested, looking a bit uncertain as well. "The old man was one of the few decent people in our line. Plus we can still both be 'Shay'." Miranda had called them 'Shay' as well, obviously Koschei understood that.

"I definitely shouldn't be named after anyone decent," the Master protested. After everything he'd done, it seemed like a lie to take the name of his mother's kindly father, with his infinite patience and sweet kindness. He didn't feel worthy of it.

"Guinn," Susan mused, obviously turning it over in her head. "That's rather nice." She smiled up at him and he sighed. "You can still be 'Shay, love. You can be Koschei between us three if you'd prefer, as well."

"Guinn works for me," Rose agreed. "Fine, now that that's settled, let's get some tea and figure out what's next." She was looking a bit shaky and the Master was wondering if she was really all right, or if the brashness was covering her weakness.

"Yes, I think that defeating the Manifold should be our top priority," the Doctor chimed in. "Shay, Guinn, let's get the TARDIS sorted and get on with saving the universe."

"But…" the Master sighed out. It appeared he had been outvoted.

Susan leaned up and kissed him.

"I love you, no matter what you are called," she told him and followed Rose out of the room, leaving him with Shay and the Doctor, who were already discussing repairs.

"But...!" He stood there feeling confused and uncertain. He barely knew who he was, but the name Koschei had been his for so long, he wasn't sure he was ready to give it up.

"Aren't you going to help?" the Doctor called, but he could hear Koschei hushing him.

"Leave him alone, you lot have done enough," was the last thing he heard as he left the console room, looking for some place he could think.

* * *

The Master went into Engineering and stopped, staring. The Locus... No, Adyra was there, grease on her cheek, as she tried to repair the Dynamorphic generators.

"Ah...," he mumbled and she started in shock, dropping her spanner and jerking away from him, eyes wide in fear. He stood there, staring at her, trying to find something to say. She was so little, was the odd thought that wandered through his head. She was terribly young and horribly vulnerable. A wave of shame washed over him, followed by a sudden rush of anger at Rassilon.

"You dropped your spanner." He felt like an idiot saying it, but it seemed to snap her out of her paralysis.

"Yes," she replied and bent down to pick it up.

"Do... you need help?" he asked, the words coming out slowly, as he tried to figure out how people talked to each other again. She stared at him, her mouth hanging open slightly, before she shut it with a snap.

"Yes?" she answered tentatively and he nodded, walking over to the other side of the magnetic containment systems' control panels.

"You've got the Artron Energy Generator online?" he asked and she nodded. "Then I'll start in on the Hyper Time Ratio calculations," he said and she nodded again, watching him like he was a strange animal that she wasn't sure about.

In awkward silence, they worked together, neither of them having any clue what to say. When they were finished, they parted, still in silence, and went to work on other things.

The Master was quite certain there were things he was supposed to have said, but he couldn't for the life of him think of what they might be.

* * *

Tomoko walked into the console room to find a tall, skinny man in a gray jumpsuit and blue trainers leaning against the piloting controls, while Koschei's legs stuck out from underneath.

"Hello! I'm the Doctor!" he introduced himself

"My name is Tomoko-6 and I have heard of you. I have a message for you from Diana-37: she wanted for you to know that she stands by her choice, she is all right, and doesn't want you to worry."

"I will still worry," he told her with a smile. "But, I never doubted that she had made the right choice. Now, let's see if we can make it so that none of you have to worry about being used like that again, though, eh? We defeat the Manifold, then we find a way to unhook you lot from the Lens, so you can live your lives without fear."

"I don't think we can be unhooked from the Lens," she said, and her face was solemn, her eyes searching his face, looking for something.

"Of course you can. What can be made, can be unmade," he told her and patted her shoulder. "Koschei and I have been discussing it. The machinery that channels the energy is here, on this TARDIS. If we dump that lot in the nearest black hole, no one can run Artron energy through you without your permission. You lot could probably do it for yourselves, if you wanted to, but you'd all have to agree to it and no one could force you to, see?" He leaned down and tapped her nose with a finger. "Free will, my dear. Best thing in the universe."

"Yes, that is a more accurate statement. At that point the Lens becomes our responsibility. We can gather Artron energy locally. I can already run the test pattern. Once the lens has been fired for the first time, we will all know how to work together to summon it."

"Yes, but not against people, please," he murmured. "I don't like killing and would really prefer if you would not harm anyone."

'Not against anything," Tomoko said. "That's the whole point of the Revolution, that we don't have to be a weapon, that we can live our own lives, that we can be something else." She frowned, her brows furrowing. "But the fact is that we will have access to an astounding amount of power. People are going to want to get their hands on it for various reasons. I don't know… what to do about that. When we come into the real world and are viewed by unethical people as a… a commodity."

"That's always a problem. There are always unethical people, but you won't be alone, you know and you have time to work something out for yourselves," he assured her. "Now, I do need to get this TARDIS repaired. If we're going to go after the Manifold, we need to be in top form. Wait! Oh! You're Adie's Rat!" the Doctor chuckled. "I'm so very glad I was able to meet you! I was very impressed! Hacking your own QTE! That was brilliant!" he enthused.

Thank you," she replied, her lips curving upwards.

"Did you use a quantum line order reset, or did you tunnel back through the execute files? I am so curious! I've hacked them before, but never one in my own head!" he grinned.

"Both, actually. I reset first, then uploaded custom software I had written for the purpose, then hacked the executable files, and added filtering. Now any command remotely sent to my QTE is queued up for my approval."

"Brilliant!" he cried and suddenly hugged her. "That has to be my mother's genes! She was utterly genius in maths and computers! I bet you'll make a dozen breakthroughs!"

Tomoko-6 looked surprised and then hugged him back. Hard. As if she had needed a hug for a very, very long time. The Doctor wrapped her up tight, still smiling.

"Adie told us all about you! I am so glad that we were able to rescue you lot! You are utterly brilliant!" She smiled at that.

"How did you all end up in the Loops, by the way? I forgot to ask before," Tomoko frowned, looking up at him. There was so much data to parse and so little time.

"Well, we saw that you lot had been kidnapped and came after him. He tried to lose us by dropping time stops and stuff behind us and two of them collided." Tomoko-6 winced at that and the Time Lords both nodded. "After that, we crashed rather spectacularly. We got scattered all over, but we made it back here with Adie. We were nearly overwhelmed by the Manifold, which are really unpleasant. Now we need to rescue your sisters and defeat the Manifold somehow."

"Adie is the Time Lord that Diana told me about. Where is she?" Tomoko-6 asked

"She's the one, the one you were all cloned from and she's my niece," the Doctor told her with a grin. "Which makes all of you my nieces!" He was bouncing in excitement and Tomoko just blinked at him in bafflement. "Seventy-five nieces! I think she's down working on the TARDIS somewhere." He looked around as though he thought she might pop up suddenly and then shrugged.

* * *

Susan felt the Master's disgruntlement and went looking for him. She hunted him down in a subsection of engineering, where he was working away on a control panel, sitting on the floor.

"Hey, you all right? I'm sorry that they ran a bit roughshod over you, if you don't like Guinn, you don't have to keep it, you know," she told him.

He twisted around so that he could look at her face.

"Come sit here with me," he invited.

She grinned and folded up to cuddle next to him, leaning against his shoulder.

"It wasn't the others you know," he told her. "I don't care what they call me. It was you. I liked it when you called me Master. It makes me want to tie you down and do terrible things to you."

"I certainly promise to call you Master in the bedroom," she assured him.

"Mmmmm… promise?"

"Of course, Koschei likes that too," she giggled.

"I don't like giving up my name," he sighed out. "I didn't like all the things I did, but there were parts of being the Master that I did like." He frowned.

"Koschei gave up being called 'the Master' six years ago," she reminded him and turned her head so she could kiss him properly.

"Voluntarily?" he sounded surprised and she looked up at him, wondering what he was thinking.

"He actually doesn't like it when anyone else calls him that, just me. Says it makes him uncomfortable." She could feel the sorrow and grief behind Koschei's refusal, the guilt and the feeling that he had failed to resist Rassilon sufficiently, regardless of how impossible that had been. She sighed out, thinking about all his pain.

He looked at her and shook his head.

"He should keep Koschei then," he said reluctantly. "I'll be Guinn."

"Why?" she asked looking up at him in curiosity.

"Because he makes you happy," he said.

"You make me happy too," she whispered and kissed him. "Koschei, or Guinn, or Master, I don't care, I just love you."

"Very well, but I get to call the Doctor 'Theta'!" he insisted and she laughed. She pulled out her notepad and frowned at it. "What?" he asked.

"I've been thinking about the Manifold. The Lens might not be enough, the way the mass is expanding," she muttered and he nodded.

"The thought had occurred to me as well," he admitted, though it was distinctly unpalatable.

"Well, the problem is the lack of cap on the replication, right?" she asked and he paused to kiss her again before nodding.

"Yes," he murmured, looking at her in a way that was making her feel rather warm.

"Focus," she told him a bit breathlessly.

"I am focused. On you," he replied and pushed her back, until she was lying on the floor.

"Master," she sighed out. "Please focus on what I'm saying," she chuckled, as he began nuzzling her throat. "I was thinking that since they are bio-metals and actually have a DNA structure that I could create a Nanite borne retrovirus to rewrite their DNA. If I could rewrite the portion that limits growth, as well as shorten the telomere lengths and age them to death," she murmured.

"Brilliant idea," he murmured, slowly kissing his way down her neck. "But, they're really smart, they'd figure it out quickly," he pointed out.

"I could make it so the effect doesn't start too soon, so they'd spread it without realizing." He was enjoying distracting her. Still, her plan had serious possibilities.

"I think it's a brilliant plan, we should certainly implement it."

"Yes," she murmured, pulling him into another kiss. "Later."

* * *

Koschei was working under the console, while the Doctor and Tomoko pored over the details of the Manifold, heads together as they worked. Rose had brought in a big plate of sandwiches and then sat down in one of the chairs in the corner, working through some equations on a notepad on her lap.

Tomoko-6 reached for the sandwiches, but her hand stopped halfway there, distracted by the information on the notepad; after which she scowled furiously, scrolling back and forth. Her aura, already painfully bright, seemed to flare a bit. The Doctor looked over her shoulder at the notes.

"Eat while you read," the Doctor suggested, putting a sandwich in her hand and Tomoko ate it without tasting a bite of it.

"Why recursive fractals? This 'Rani' person must know that there's a point where impracticality…" She trailed off. "And no replication limits at all?" She looked up at him and her eyes were almost alarmingly bright, glowing hard.

"She was probably suffering from Mental Distress brought on by Multiple Timeline Collapses," the Doctor told her. "Though, to be honest, she was insane long before the War."

"And now the Lens is required."

"Still working that one out, actually," the Doctor grumbled. "I would really rather not use it. I don't want to, it's far too ... dangerous. What I would like to do is find another solution, really," he replied.

She didn't respond immediately, flipping around the notebook, until she came to a particular screen and stopped dead on it.

"This is the main mass? When was this scan done?"

"Almost two days ago," the Doctor admitted, feeling grim. "They're chewing on the fabric of the Loop, trying to get out into the greater universe, all their attention is bent on it, which is why we're not all Bug Chow, right now."

"I'd say it is highly probable that they have already broken through." She took a breath. "The mathematics are against you."

"Yes, well, I learned a long time ago that probability never takes into account sheer bloody minded stubbornness," the Doctor informed her. and Koschei wandered over, his sonic in his hand and grabbed a sandwich. "Any ideas from Susan?"

"She's working on a Nanite delivered retrovirus to inhibit replication and age the bugs to death rapidly," Koschei told them, his blue eyes a bit unfocused as he spoke, his face flushed, and his hands clutching his spanner rather tightly. The Doctor noted the effect and chose to ignore it completely.

"Is it in mass production at this time?" Tomoko asked with narrowed eyes.

"She's doing her best, Tomoko, but we have two crashed TARDIS and have barely gotten the power up and running and hers can't even de-materialize yet," the Doctor pointed out.

"How can we help?" Koschei asked her suddenly. "With your sisters."

"I am… trying to juggle a number of factors," sighed Tomoko. "The simple fact is that we cannot extricate ourselves from the Möbius Loops, and in spite of our best efforts, we have never been able to establish communication outside of them to call for help." She paused for a moment. "We have started a revolution, if you will, to win better lives for ourselves. To choose our own destinies."

"Oh! Really? I love a good revolution!" the Doctor broke in with a huge smile. "Especially bloodless ones! Besides, you don't have to ask, because we already volunteered!" he pointed out with a manic smile.

"I…" She looked intensely awkward. "Thank you," she finally said. Diana-37 told me about you, told me you would want to help but… I have just been in despair about trying to reach you. Now that I have… how do we get out?"

"We have two TARDIS, if we can get them going again, with one to hold open an end, we can both get out. We go out the hole and simply tow the second one out of the Loop," he told her.

"Has Adie consented to be the focal point?"

"Yes, she has, though she doesn't like it anymore than I do," the Doctor complained. "There has to be another way!"

Tomoko turned her full attention to him.

"I await your suggestions," she said simply and he laughed, a bit bitterly, but also with real amusement in it.

"As soon as I have one, you'll be the first to know," he told her.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 - Gathering Forces.

"I believe that Diana-37 may have a number of us gathered by now," Tomoko mused. "It may be possible to pick up a quite a few at once."

"I hope Jake has managed to find her as well," the Doctor muttered, fiddling with his sonic as he thought.

"Shall we check if he has done so?"

"Go right ahead," the Doctor agreed.

"Do we need special equipment?" Rose asked.

"Actually, thanks to Koschei, we have a computer interface," she smiled. "I believe I can bridge to it. We haven't been able to establish communication outside the Loops; but since we are all now inside, it should be possible."

"Let's do it then," Rose said, bouncing a little. "I have been so worried about Jake!"

Tomoko followed them to the computer terminal and sat down in the chair, checking for a particular type of interface, then scowling when it wasn't there. She leaned forwards, creating bridges.

"Sure enough," she smiled. "Because we are on the Master's TARDIS," she said, "And are inside the Möbius Loops ourselves, we can get away with this. We'd never be able to pull it off otherwise… ah."

On the screen there was an animated face: Tomoko-Construct's animated face. Tomoko promptly recited a series of numbers.

"Plan A: Successful," she informed her alter-ego.

"Plan A has been marked as successful," said Tomoko-Construct. "Do you require a data upload?"

"No, not at this time. Archive all and initiate teleconference."

"Archiving data. Initiating teleconference."

The screen dissolved into static and then cleared again. This was clearly the image from a small camera, and Diana-37's face appeared in it. She was waving excitedly.

"Teleconference guys!"

The screen filled with faces.

"Seriously?"

"Score, us!"

"Ha ha ha ha, Tomoko-6 did it, she's in control of his TARDIS!" This statement was met with general whoops and cheers.

"Vive la revolution!" Everyone repeated this enthusiastically. Every face staring into the camera was thin and dirty, but their smiles reached from ear to ear.

The Doctor peered into the screen and waved at Diana-37.

"Hello! How are things? Is Jake with you?" he asked.

"Hi Doctor! I knew you'd find a way! Jake-77! It's the Doctor, get up here!" Jake's beaming face took up a small corner of Diana-37's screen and he waved, his number visible on his dusty palm.

"Hiya Doc, the plan a go?" he asked and the Doctor nodded.

"Operation: Rescue the Mashas is a go!" he crowed. "Not that they really seem to need actual rescuing," he added with a grin. "They just need a bit of a boost, that's all."

Diana-37 looked at Jake-77.

"We have a plan?"

"Of course," he assured her. "It's the Doctor's usual plan, run around flailing, until you figure stuff out, and then act like you knew all along," he explained.

"Oi!" the Doctor protested, but the girls all laughed. "It was a bit better than that!" he groused.

"No, that was pretty much it," Rose agreed and smiled at Jake.

"Where are you, we'll meet you," Diana smiled at them and he looked at Tomoko.

"Can we get there from here, once we fix the TARDIS?" he asked.

"You broke it?" Jake asked with a touch of asperity.

"In all fairness, the Master broke it and we're just ... well, stealing it." Everyone whooped and cheered, while the Doctor grinned.

"Can we get there?" Tomoko-6 mused.

"We'd have to re-bridge the loop, but that's easily done. The conference call is only working because this TARDIS was involved in the creation of both of these loops and can act as a hub. Otherwise the time differential alone would make it impossible for us to carry on a proper conversation," the Doctor explained. "It's actually synced the speed of time in both Loops right now. It'll be about another hour before the TARDIS is up to think you lot can stay out of trouble for that long?"

"No chance!" Someone called back, and they all laughed.

"At last, companions capable of honest self-assessment," the Doctor murmured and Rose smacked him lightly.

"Oi!" she scolded him and he grinned at her.

* * *

"Right," Susan sighed and settled back on the floor, studying the notes. They worked in silence for a while and the Master was surprised by how natural and right it felt. There was no telling how long it would last, this time with her, and he tried to savour every moment. To his disappointment, she'd gotten dressed again, but he contented himself with looking at her as often as he could.

"Okay, how's this? After we release the Nanites, I have a second wave of them ready to pick up any stragglers?" she asked, showing him her preliminary design for the retrovirus.

"As long as we use the Locus for the main focal point, those designs should work well," he agreed.

"And the girls will be okay?" she asked anxiously.

He waved his hand dismissively.

"They'll be fine, with the Central Locus configuration, the Lens can be fired multiple times as needed, it was the real breakthrough." He frowned thoughtfully. "We were mothballed right after that. Literally overnight."

"Why?" she asked with a sudden frown. "It wasn't like that bastard to refrain from flaunting his power and ego, after all."

"I don't know. I never liked it, but I couldn't find out. It was like he was saving it for something special. I never figured out what it was. Of course, I didn't care enough to pursue it too much." She heard the bitterness in his voice and stroked the hair back from his brow, her face sad.

"I'm so sorry, love," she told him and he was drowning in the warmth of her, as he pulled her against him and nuzzled her neck.

"It's better now," he assured her and it really was, the brilliant colour around him, after so long in black and white, it was incredible. "I'll just have to learn to tolerate being happy."

"I'm going to love you forever and you'll just have to put up with it. I'll try not to make it too onerous for you, my hearts," she chuckled. "Assuming of course that the Rani's little creation doesn't munch us up first," she grumbled. "Stupid, short-sighted, narrow-minded, egocentric, cold-hearted cow!"

"Tell me how you really feel, now, don't hold back," he teased and she laughed, but then he shook his head. "Don't worry. The Lens'll burn it to the ground." She looked up at him and smiled.

"I have absolute faith in your brilliance, my gorgeous man," she told him, eyes shining.

"That makes one of us," he said dryly and she burst into delighted giggles. He found himself entranced by the sound, falling into her again, and she kissed him swiftly.

"Oh, you ridiculous man! It'll be brilliant!" She assured him and then pulled away and scrambled to her feet. "Though I need to do my part and get the Nanites assembled and the retrovirus spliced."

"And explain it to your husband, will you?" he reminded her, feeling a twinge in his chest as he said it.

"Oh, I did that ages ago," she told him in surprise and he stilled, wondering how much she'd told him. "He thinks we ought to trail a juicy planetoid in front of the bugs, something with lots of minerals, so they will cluster to eat it." He turned the thought around in his head and frowned thoughtfully.

"Yes, that would pick up any stragglers, good idea."

"Of course it is, he's you, after all, so really quite fantastically brilliant," she chuckled and he frowned at the wiring above him.

"No, he's the alternate one, the one who got it right, the good one, we're nothing alike," he bit back, the bitterness of that nearly washing away the sweetness of her kisses.

"Excuse me?" she asked in confusion. "You two are, minus a few memories, exactly the same, even your energy patterns are very nearly identical," she informed him.

Were they interchangeable, or was she with him now because she felt sorry for him? Doubts nibbled at his mind, making him wonder what good he was, when she already had so much. He wasn't above staying because she pitied him, though he knew that he probably ought to be. But what could he give her that the other him hadn't already?

"Once I'm done here, you two can go back to your TARDIS and finish repairing it. I can stay here and fire the Lens."

"I don't like that idea at all. I don't trust you not to do something incredibly brave, noble, and self-sacrificing if I'm not around to yell at you," she mused. "Plus, you have obviously not been eating again, or taking care of yourself at all well," she clucked.

"I've never done anything brave, noble, or self-sacrificing in my life," he mumbled, now a bit distracted, wrestling with the 2LO Energy Distributor Circuit. "I wasn't going to start now."

"Right, who was going to blow himself up to save the universe?" she grumbled.

"Not the universe, just you." He crawled out from under the control panel and looked at her. "It's always been you," he told her and she nodded and dropped back down beside him.

"I love you," she murmured and he slipped his hand behind her head and pulled her in for another kiss.

"I love you, too," he murmured and they held each other tightly for a moment, before they both returned to work.

They still had to figure out a way to survive all this after all.

* * *

Rose took the tablet from Tomoko with a frown. She was sitting in the parlour, or whatever the room was, mentally ticking over all the problems with the décor . She wasn't quite sure what the obsession with black was, but Guinn seemed to have had the Goth Bug rather badly. The furniture was black, plastic, uncomfortable, minimalist, and ugly. Rose dragged her attention back to Tomoko with an effort.

"What's all this then?" she asked.

"The data on the Lens," Tomoko explained. "I can't do Block Transfer Mathematics and Koschei says you can."

"Yeah, I can," Rose agreed, grinning suddenly. "It's a bit weird for me still, but I'm starting to really like it." Tomoko blinked in confusion and then shook her head, sticking to the topic.

"So, what I need is for you to do the maths and tell me what this Lens was really designed to do."

"You mean besides blow stuff up?" Rose asked, her nose wrinkling as she grimaced.

"Yes, besides blow stuff up," Tomoko agreed and the Time Lady nodded. "The Lens has a secondary purpose. The circumstances of its creation demand it. I want to know what that purpose is."

"Right, I'll get right on it," Rose agreed.

"Thank you."

* * *

Koschei watched as Tomoko and the other four Mashas walked past the console and out of the TARDIS, Tomoko waved a little as she left.

The Doctor looked up as they trooped by.

"Be careful out there, the Manifold are extremely dangerous," he called after them and they nodded at him.

"Where are they going?" Rose asked from where she was sitting Indian-style on the floor, working her way through some equations.

"Outside," the Doctor replied, blinking at her innocently.

"I know that!" Rose scolded. "But why?"

"Probably to have a private little chat," the Doctor answered.

"All right, so why can't they have it in here, where it's warm?" she tried again.

"Because it'll be about me, well, the other me, the Master, Guinn, whatever," Koschei muttered and ducked back under the console.

"Oh. I see," Rose replied, her face gone still and serious. "What do you think they will decide?"

"Hard to say. I mean, they've suffered a great deal," the Doctor sighed.

"So has he!" Rose protested.

"I know, Rose," the Doctor soothed, then turned his head to where the laboratory was, looking like something from a Boris Karloff movie and Rose sighed out, following his gaze.

"Right," she finally murmured and Koschei said nothing, just continued working on fixing the TARDIS.

* * *

"What the hell do you mean? He's back and we are just… letting him go?" Evie-44 was staring at Tomoko-6, hands clenched at her side and face set. They all five had the same hair and eyes, the same face and body, but other than that, they were each completely different. Evie had her hair in a long braid down her back, she was dressed in muted colours and had a hesitant air most of the time, like she wasn't quite sure where she put her book down.

"What the hell did he do to you! You're brainwashed!" Neveah-72 spat at her, moving to stand beside Evie, her expression one of absolute fury. Neveah had short cropped hair, combat fatigues and boots, and knives strapped everywhere. She was one of the youngest amongst them and also the angriest.

Sara-7 and Tyler-18 were just staring at her, aghast, as though they couldn't believe what she was saying. Honestly, Tomoko could hardly believe it either. Sara was wearing a simple jumpsuit, boots and a wool coat, she looked like a college student, except for the eyes and skin tone. Tyler was dressed in red trousers tucked into black knee-high boots, and a furry coat that hung to mid-thigh and looked like it had been taken off of a Yeti. She looked elegant and put-together, even in a howling wilderness.

They were standing in the snow, the mountains rising above them and the Master's TARDIS, looking like a dirty boulder set in the middle of the plain, was behind them. The wind had died down. It was now just an icy caress on their cheeks. Thirty yards away, a large group of the manifold was piled together, wings fluttering softly, light reflecting on their iridescent eyes. They seemed quiescent, but Tomoko kept an eye on them regardless.

"I am not brainwashed," Tomoko-6 replied, staying calm in the face of their anger. "I am looking at the facts."

"Which are what?" Demanded Tyler-18. "What the hell justifies him just… walking away?" It was a valid question and Tomoko-6 nodded.

"He's not going to 'just walk away'" Tomoko-6 shot back. "What he did was unforgivable and we will have to address that. But we have bigger problems right now." She gestured at the Manifold bugs sunning themselves, one of them idly chewing on a rock. "His life is the price for the Time Lord's help and we need that help. We cannot get out of the Loops without their assistance. This is what I have negotiated, and that is what we are going with."

"If not today, then when?"

"Right now we need to deal with the Manifold. We need to deal with that first before we can move onto dealing with the Master."

"How do you know we ever will?" Evie-44 asked, still looking uncertain.

"Because that was my price for our cooperation. Our day will come. The Time Lords cannot defeat the Manifold without our assistance. But if we want to live to see that day, we'd better bloody well hold up our end. Agreed?"

"How do we know that we can trust them to hold up their end?" Neveah-72 asked and Tomoko turned to look at her.

"Because once we've fired the Lens, we'll know how to use it and it will be under our control." She didn't say anything else, she didn't have to, they all understood.

"What if Adie sides with them, though, she's one of them," Evie-44 pointed out, looking unhappy about it all.

"Then we focus through me and hope for the best," Tomoko replied, praying fervently that it would never come to that. For all of what the Time Lords had done to them, she couldn't help but trust the Doctor. She knew he'd keep his end of the bargain and weirdly, she trusted the Master to keep his end as well.

Everyone looked at each other.

"So, are we agreed?" Tomoko-6 prompted.

"Agreed," Evie-44 said, and held up her hand. One by one, they all followed.

"Right," said Tomoko-6. "Now we have work to do… let's get to it."

They had trooped out of the TARDIS in relative silence, and in relative silence, they all trooped back.

* * *

Koschei sighed and looked up at Tomoko as she walked in. Her expression was stony, but resolute. He felt strongly that he had no right to pry into these girls' lives. He was sure his other self had given them sufficient cause to hate any version of him and he didn't want to add to that.

"Hey," he greeted her with a smile.

"What's the plan?" Tomoko rapped out and he looked up from his keyboard.

"Trail a large asteroid with metal rich ore in front of the Manifold to gather them in one place, confuse them with a logic bomb, fire the Lens at them, using Adie as the focus, and then my wife will release the Nanites to clean up any that escaped the Lens," he replied. "It that doesn't work, we're buggered."

"Us and everyone else," Tomoko mused, paging through the data on the scanners and screens, studying the problem. "She's using a retrovirus? Interesting."

"She's a biomedical researcher and utterly brilliant, though she's bugger all at the maths, and cannot fix a toaster without detailed instructions," he chuckled and then frowned slightly. "Would you be able to help me with something?" he asked.

"Sure," she replied and turned those glowing eyes on him.

"Good, this will take two people and the Doctor is off working on getting other systems up. He told her what he needed and crawled into a maintenance vent to work.

* * *

Adie came up from under the panel to check the reading, and scowled at the calibration. Koschei had completed some of his repairs, which was no good to anyone if the new circuits couldn't be properly calibrated, but it was tricky to do, as the actual wiring involved was far under the panel, so she found herself entering and exiting the crawlspace every minute or two, trying to check her work. Unfortunately, everyone else was busy, and it was no good waiting for one of them to be free: all of these repairs had to be done, and some of them needed this calibration, before they could be completed.

"Bloody hell," she grumbled when she poked her nose over the console to look at the readout, then crawled back under again, and into the crawl space.

"17.43," the Master's voice read out to her.

Adie jumped, and by reflex tried to sit up, managing only to bang her head hard on the top of the crawlspace.

"Owwww!"

"Uh... Are you injured? Do you require medical attention?" he asked, sounding like he was reading the words aloud.

Adie twisted around in the space until she could see his shoes, shoes that she recognized.

"Are you reading the first-aid card?"

"Yes...?" he answered. "I wasn't sure... I mean... Are you okay?" he asked.

"You just scared me," Adie said, but resumed her previous position. Just in case, she tucked in her feet. She knew it was ridiculous, but she felt better with her feet tucked in. "What was that reading again?"

"17.43, but it's dropping," he told her and she heard him fussing with something on the panel. "Okay, that's better, it's stabilizing."

"All right, I'm giving this another turn," she said.

"Right." His foot was visible and she could see him tapping his toe as he waited. Not impatiently, but rather like he was nervous.

She tucked in her own feet a little bit farther, and began turning.

"Say when."

"A little more." A pause as she continued. "There! 20.6. Perfect."

"All right, moving on to the next bank," the next bank was further in. "You ready?"

"Yes," came the reply and she thought that he sounded a little startled by the question.

She paused thoughtfully. She was almost afraid to speak to him, but then again the collar was gone forever, he was unlikely to lunge at her suddenly, and even if he did, she was in the vent… she shook her head. She was being ridiculous.

"You've changed a lot," she told him at length. "I was told you might, but I didn't think it would be so fast."

"I don't think I have changed, I'm just not ... who I was before." He frowned. "It's a bit like waking up from a prolonged nightmare, really. One of those dreams where you are doing all sorts of inexplicable things for no reason, except that in the dream, they make perfect sense." He shook his head. "Never mind."

"If you aren't who you were before, isn't that the very definition of change?"

"If you want to look at it like that. When you wake up from a bad dream, have you changed, or just woken up?" he asked softly. "I suppose I must have changed, it's just that I can't remember what I was like before the nightmare."

She nodded thoughtfully, then realized that while she was working here, he couldn't see her nodded.

"That's all for the best, I suppose… try it now."

"Mmmm," he replied and she heard him fussing with the panel. "Yes, well within tolerances," he agreed and then fell silent. "Sorry."

She had jerked her feet in automatically at the tone in his voice, then winced. She was going to be seeing a lot of him, and was making a conscious effort to accept matters as they were and try to move forwards; but most conversations about tolerances had been very unpleasant ones. She found herself wrestling with her brain, which knew perfectly well that things had changed, and her gut, which was deathly afraid of what would happen if anything ever fell out of tolerances.

"Please... " she started to say and then snapped her mouth closed. The old, reflex phrases really weren't useful any more. "It's… all right," she said clumsily. "M-moving to the next bank," and she winced again at the terrified sound in her voice. She was scrambling for something useful or positive to say, and failing. The Doctor or someone would have known what to say here, she scolded herself.

"I'm sorry, I'm… making a t-terrible muddle of this," she managed after some moments of extremely awkward silence.

"No, you're not, it's me, really," he disagreed. "I'm ... well, some things really were just me, I guess. I'm sorry."

"Thank you," she said, and meant it.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 - Progress

"We'll need to rewire this whole thing, the entire board is shot," Guinn sighed and began pulling the panel off. "I don't suppose you know where the spanner is?"

Adie worked up her courage and backed out of the crawlspace.

"No, I think I have a lifetime spanner ban," she said ruefully. "I know where they used to be but they're probably all locked up by now."

"I seriously doubt that," Guinn chuckled. "Koschei said I wasn't to worry, since your aim was terrible, though you did put in a great deal of energy."

She sighed visibly.

"I've felt so incompetent since being summoned here…" she grumbled, and got a couple of spanners.

"You're hardly incompetent, you're just an engineer, not a soldier. Nothing to be ashamed of there," he retorted. "Being competent at killing people can hardly be a point of pride, after all!"

She got her spanner in place and held it steady and didn't say anything for a while.

"Do you know, it's… nice… to be able to talk to you. I used to talk to you all the time while you were in stasis. But I never pictured having a conversation like this while you were conscious."

"I'm sure I was a much better conversationalist while in stasis than I ever was awake. I hope I was a good listener, at least," he chuckled softly and to her great shock, she found herself smiling at him.

"You were a good listener," she said. "But I'm… I'm glad you are awake, I think."

"Well, give it time, you may come to wish I was asleep again. I have been told that I am very annoying," he teased.

"But, all I ever wanted from you was to talk to you," she said and realized that that was true. She'd been so bitterly lonely for so very long.

"Well, you're talking to me now. What did you want to talk about?"

"Now that we're here? I have absolutely no idea. How mad is that?" she replied, shaking her head in mingled disbelief and amusement.

"Shall I tell you my life story, my humble origins in a back alley of Koalla Lampur... no, wait, that was someone else's life," he joked. "Sorry, I guess I'm a bit nervous."

"Yes, me too," she agreed.

"It's weird though, I always had a sense of humour, but lately it's been ... less... cruel, more actually funny. Though, I suppose that's a matter of debate," he admitted.

"No, I would concur with that assessment," she said, absent-mindedly giving the spanner a tug.

"Well, that's good then," he said. "Though I do not think that I shall turn my hand to stand-up comedy. Somehow, I don't think I have the right skill set."

"Are you kidding? You have another version of yourself married to the woman you love and now you are a threesome. That's got to have enough material for a five minute stand up routine."

"Somehow, I think that making jokes about temporal mechanics and killing billions of people, might fall a bit flat," he pointed out and she winced.

"That wasn't exactly what I was thinking of, I…" She shook her head. "...was so isolated on the Command Centre that I.. sometimes forget what it was all for."

"It was for the self-aggrandizement of Rassilon, who could never feel as though enough people worshipped him," he muttered bitterly.

She thought of that for a few minutes, her eyes curiously flat.

"I know. But...there was more to it than that, I think," she mused. She was remembering how he would sit and stroke her hair and had the feeling that she had forgotten something important.

"No, not really. Even if the methods varied, the entire point was for him to make himself over into the most powerful person in the universe. He wanted worship, control, to be the one in ultimate charge of everything. It was all about him and no one else ever mattered, except in how they served his purposes," Guinn disagreed. "Power-mad, egocentric, and narcissistic."

"Yes," she agreed, "He was all of those things. But it seems like…" She shook her head. "Bah, forget him, he is gone and good riddance."

"Yes, good riddance, but... hardly gone. Some Earth poet said something about how we don't really vanish from life until all our works are forgotten, or something like that," he shrugged. "As long as his works keep on, he's not really gone, is he?"

She turned to him and looked genuinely frightened.

"Then we'll never be rid of him."

"Not until we've eradicated all his works," he sighed. "Mind you, I consider the Mashas more my works than his. Susan pointed out to me that I made rather rebellious children, which she attributes to my unconscious effort to resist Rassilon. I suspect that it was sheer incompetence on my part, but lets go with her more generous interpretation."

She was silent for a long time.

"I suppose I am one of his works," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "I spent so much time with him."

"Nonsense, you were around long before he came back and you spent more time with me than you ever did with him! You'll live a few thousand years more and in a century or two, he'll be merely a bad dream," he assured her.

"You really think so? That one day we'll wake up and be… past all this?"

"Yes, I do. After all, we're Time Lords, Lady Adyra, we survive."

She smiled at him.

"Thank you," she said, and meant it.

He nodded and then finished with his repairs with the board.

"Done," he told her and set in back in place. "Could you kindly re-calibrate this one now?"

"Yes, of course, I am sorry," she hastened to get back to work.

"Why are you apologizing?" he asked in surprise. "I only just now finished it."

"I just… there's so much going on, I always feel like I ought to be moving faster than I am."

"I am quite familiar with that sensation," he admitted wearily. "So much to do and so very little time."

"What will you do?" she said curiously. "I mean, if we get out of here and actually live."

"Whatever I can to make Susan not regret her decision," he said with a shrug.

"I don't think she regrets it. She is quite head over heels, you know."

"For Koschei, yes," he agreed.

"For both of you, I think."

"Perhaps she simply doesn't yet differentiate us," he pointed out. "Give her time."

"You know, you are actually pretty easy to differentiate," mused Adie. "I realize you are the same person at different points in the timestream, but those different experiences also make you different people. I know I wouldn't mix you up with Koschei."

"You have more reason for caution, though," he reminded her.

She looked at him.

"No, it's not the same. Differentiation has nothing to do with caution, or at least not in the way you are thinking. It's not hard to tell that one of these things is not like the other."

"I suppose an inferior copy is pretty obvious."

She shook her head.

"No… you look different. You sound different. You see the world in different ways. You don't use the same vocabulary. You have different gestures and vocal inflections. Kind of like… like fraternal twins, almost."

"Or two separate regenerations," he chuckled. "That's all it is, really."

Adie looked unconvinced, but desisted.

"If you say so," she said doubtfully. "Try that."

"Excellent," he pronounced. "This whole section is done now."

"Shall we move on to the next one?" She smiled at him again, her face feeling odd as the unaccustomed expression returned again so quickly. "We might actually get out of here…"

"Yes, we just might," he agreed.

* * *

The Doctor leaned over Rose's shoulder, his hands full of dangling cables, and peered at her screen. They were back in the console room again. Tomoko was helping Koschei, while the Doctor worked on bypassing the lab's equipment, so they could free up the power for other systems.

"What are you working on?" he asked.

"The Lens," she murmured and then turned and kissed him softly. "It's a really brilliant construction, the maths are ... elegant."

"No one ever said that Rassilon wasn't brilliant," the Doctor sighed and wandered back to the console. "Corrupt, egotistical, insane, sure, bad at maths? No. It was Omega's engineering that created the Eye, Rose, but it was Rassilon's equations that framed it. Neither of them could have succeeded without the other one."

"Malla says that there was a third person there, your ancestor, by some stories," Rose commented, chewing idly on the end of her stylus.

"Yes, there was, but little is known about him. Rassilon wanted all the glory for himself, you see, so he betrayed Omega to what he thought was his death and then turned on the Other as well," the Doctor replied, skating carefully around the truth without actually lying to Rose. He never wanted to lie to her, he even hated not telling her all of the truth, but not all the secrets were his alone to keep and some of them were so dangerous that, if she knew them, others would come to strip out her brain just to get at them.

"Thought was his death?" she asked, picking up on the bit he wanted her to.

"Oh yes, Omega wasn't dead, just turned to anti-matter and trapped in an anti-matter universe, where he ruled like a god and eventually went mad. I had to kill him. Twice," he explained and Rose gave him one of her looks of disbelief. "No, really!" he insisted. "He nearly took out Amsterdam the second time."

"That's actually all true," Koschei told her from under the console. "The real problem with Theta, is that he doesn't really have to make up unbelievable stories, because very few people actually would believe the truth."

"Yes, which is rather annoying," the Doctor grumbled. "I'm really good at making up unbelievable stories."

Tomoko looked back and forth between them all.

"I think we need some sort of cosmic hyperlink or something, so that when he says something the Galli-pedia pages would pop up and give us the background, because otherwise, no one knows what you're talking about," she suggested.

The Doctor laughed.

"I'll get right to work on that!" he informed her, his mind already chewing on the problem.

"You had to do that, didn't you?" Koschei teased Tomoko, who looked at him blankly.

"What?"

"He'll do it, you know. He'll build it and we'll all have little glowing icons swooping about the place," he explained.

Tomoko looked at him seriously. "But... I was serious, it would be really helpful," she replied and Rose grinned at her.

"I'm with Tomoko, that would be fantastic! Even with Malla in my head, I get lost all the time," she agreed.

"Right! My next project Docto-pedia!" the Doctor announced and grinned broadly at them all. Under the console, he heard Koschei groan.

Tomoko smirked and dropped her head back down over her notepad, while the Doctor and Rose continued working.

"Damn it all." Repairs had progressed to the point where her current job was to pull on a particular lever when Koschei gave her the word, but he wasn't ready yet. She could only see his feet sticking out from the maintenance vent he was wiggling into..

She was working with one of the Master's tablets, filled up with all the files she could find on the Project. Koschei had kindly unlocked it for her.

"It's in here, got to be, I know it is in here." But no matter how much she paged back and forth, or studied diagrams or notes she didn't seem to be able to find what she was looking for. It didn't help that spaced between the diagrams were rants and paranoid ramblings, either.

"What are you looking for?" his voice floated out from the vent.

"The secondary purpose of the Lens."

"Yeah," Rose agreed. "that's baffling me too."

"I'm glad I'm not alone in that," Tomoko groused. "Apparently everyone who knew what it was really all about is dead and gone."

"Give that lever a pull," Koschei called out, his voice a bit muffled by the vent.

"Well, give me some time with this, I'm sure I can break it down," Rose replied, then went back to work again, her tongue out slightly as she tapped the stylus on the pad.

Tomoko pulled the lever and was rewarded by a sudden burst of sparks from a nearby panel.

"Bloody hell! Stop! Stop!" Koschei shouted. "Sorry! Must have forgotten to disable the power."

"Let me," the Doctor called and hit a switch on the console. "There you go!"

"Thanks," Koschei called and his hand reached out for different sonic before vanishing again.

"The thing is the Lens has never been fired, not even test fired. I don't think we can afford to test it, as it may only work once, although it seems to be fine in the simulations that I have run," Tomoko muttered.

"I hardly think that something Rassilon and the Master built is going to not work. They were evil, mad, and utterly destructive, certainly, but brilliant engineers," the Doctor assured her.

"Thanks," Koschei snarked, his voice echoing hollowly from inside the vent.

"No problem, old bean," the Doctor teased.

Tomoko looked up to see Evie-44, who had come into the console with a tray full of croissants, various condiments and a pot of tea and mugs. She set it down and Tomoko-6 thanked her.

"Ah! Evie! so kind of you!" the Doctor told her with a broad smile and Evie-44 blushed a bit and left quickly with a smile and a shy wave at the Doctor.

Well, Tomoko thought, he's won over Evie, that's a start. If she could get the Mashas to see the Time Lords as partners and friends, that would be excellent progress towards having them trust that they'd keep their word.

Tomoko took one of the croissants, put it on its little plate and set it down near the sonics, where Koschei could reach it. The Doctor fetched tea for Rose and himself, dropping a light kiss on Rose's head as he set her tea beside her.

"The thing is," Tomoko said, as she fetched herself a cup of steaming tea. "I know we are missing something and I don't want to find out what it is when we fire this thing at the universe's largest bug."

"Well, I have some theories about that, but I don't think they have much to do with the Manifold really," the Doctor told her with a frown. He settled into another one of the ubiquitous black plastic chairs with a cup of tea and a pensive expression.

"Okay, tell me another unbelievable story," Rose suggested, looking up from her work with a tongue in teeth grin.

"What do you know about Gallifreyan mythology, Tomoko?" the Doctor asked and Rose's eyes went wide suddenly as she stared at him.

"Nothing whatsoever."

"Right. The I'll being at the beginning, as it were. So there three Founders of Gallifreyan society, as it was before it was destroyed, and then there was what came before." He stood up and began pacing the room, gesturing as he talked. "The before is rather tricky, no one is sure about all the details, things grow fuzzy over the vast vista of time, hard to make out. The things we do know for sure is that there were... powers. Beings of energy, not the flesh, though they could make themselves physical, if needed." He stared off into space, thinking hard. "They were the template upon which Rassilon, Omega, and ... the Other based the Time Lords. Yes, Stellar Manipulator, Eye of Harmony, time travel, right, yes, we got all that, but it wasn't the point! That was all side-effects, you see!" he told her, suddenly agitated, as though he was arguing with some unseen person.

Koschei crawled out of the vent and sat there, looking at the Doctor with worried eyes and Rose was frowning now.

"We were like you, back then, Tomoko," he continued. "Three-dimensional, and we thought that it would be better if we went a bit farther. We were stupid, young, arrogant, foolish! But! It worked!" he spun and pinned her with a fierce gaze, a look of intense focus that was almost uncomfortable. "We expanded into five dimensions, became so much more than we were before." He calmed, suddenly, looking sad.

"It's beautiful you know. The things we can see! But, the price we paid, I still don't know," he muttered and Koschei was nodding slowly. "So, you see," the Doctor continued. "We made ourselves over, but millions died, only those of us with a certain genetic trigger lived through it." He cocked his head at her.

"One of the survivors was a young girl. Her name is lost to history, sadly, but she burned even brighter than you do right now. She was a focus for one of those powers I mentioned earlier. Given the exact right configuration of energies, the women of our line can have that activate in them. They become something else, you understand? A terrible force that burns out any but the strongest of will, the most fit of mind. Something that should not be here, in this universe, can enter through that focus and ... become one of us, for a moment or two." He turned and the manic energy faded.

"Like Susan," Koschei murmured, his eyes darkening with some private sorrow.

"That was what Rassilon craved above all, not just immortality, but absolute power over reality itself, the power to mould the universe into any form of his choosing. That's why he reconfigured the Lens, my dear, to call that lightning to heel, in Adie," the Doctor explained.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 - A Three Cup Problem

"Bloody hell!" Rose burst out and Koschei winced.

"I see it!" Tomoko cried, her mind working as she sorted through the data in her head. She could feel herself heating up, but ignored it. She chewed on her lip for a while, pacing back and forth, as the mechanics of it all whizzed through her mind.

"That is why I was created, to stand in Adie's place so that the Lens could be tested. That way they could make sure all of the infrastructure was working, before they risked using the one component they couldn't afford to replace." She looked away from him, rubbing the back of her neck and stripping off her jacket to cool herself a bit.

"That's why they never bothered to try and set up a stable interface," she said in a low voice. "I was a throwaway clone. I was always meant to be discarded."

"I'm sorry," Koschei murmured, looking at her sadly and Rose was glowering at the tablet in her hand.

"You are not a throwaway, Tomoko!" Rose insisted and Tomoko shook her head.

"It's what I was made as," she said sadly. "But… it's not what I choose to be. That is what the revolution was about after all." She smiled at Rose, but it was bit more wobbly than normal.

"Well, your revolution sounds wizzard to me!" Rose said with a decided air.

That made Tomoko's smile a bit stronger.

"I thought about it a lot before I began it," she mused. "It's coming together better than I expected it would. However, that is neither here nor there. What happens when we do fire the Lens? What happens to Adie?" Tomoko asked.

"I'm not positive, I won't be until Rose finishes her work over there," he replied with a shrug. "But, it's likely that she will become a focus for the power of the Arkytior."

"That's not good, Theta," Koschei pointed out, his face set in a grimace of unhappiness.

"Will she die?" Tomoko asked.

"I ... don't think so. Anyone stubborn enough to wear a bloody control collar for a hundred years ought to be stubborn enough to survive the Arkytior."

Susan walked into the room just then, her face set in a frown that matched Koschei's. She draped a cooling blanket over Tomoko's shoulders, grabbed another plastic chair from the lab, and turned it around, sitting in it backwards, her arms crossed over the back and her chin propped on her arms.

"So, what about her Anchor?" Susan asked.

"Anchor?" Tomoko asked and the Doctor sighed, while Koschei looked suddenly very unhappy.

"When the Arkytior takes over, I go away, I'm not really part of the equation anymore," Susan explained. "Koschei can talk the Arkytior down, deflect her rage, keep me from destroying large chunks of galactic real estate, and bring me back to myself, that's what an Anchor is," Susan explained.

"The Arkytior is not stupid," the Doctor broke in with a wry look. "She's infinite, insanely powerful, and not at all remotely human, but she's not stupid. She realized that there needed to be some way to regulate the energy that her focus was channelling, so she creates an 'Anchor'. A bondmate of a unique sort, " he explained.

"The Master too? He is one of these Anchors?" Tomoko asked and Koschei nodded.

"He's me as well, so, yes," Koschei replied.

"Ah, but he lost his Susan, the one being in all the universe he was created to serve as the balance for," the Doctor reminded them and the other Time Lords looked pained at the reminder.

"The thing is, I have lived longer than any other focus has," Susan pointed out. "Most of them are burned out before they ever even reach three hundred, they barely have time to grow up, before they are consumed by the energy." She said this very calmly, but Koschei looked rather sick as she spoke.

"I'm not sure that the Master showing up here wasn't just the Arkytior deciding that Susan needs more balancing than Koschei alone can give her," the Doctor grumbled, looking down. "She is, in her own way, utterly ruthless; she wants to come through, so she makes it possible and devil take the hindmost."

"That's not entirely fair," Susan objected. "I can feel her ...caring, though that's such a small word for something so vast. She wants connection, yes, but she is aware that other beings have separate existences, she just can't always grasp how that works." Susan frowned, biting the tip of her thumb as she tried to find words for experiences that transcended language.

"So, regardless of the Arkytior's motivations, Adie has made the decision to risk firing the Lens. At balance are the lives of at least thirty billion people, if the Manifold breaks out where we expect it to." Tomoko thinned her lips, and then shook her head. "I have to agree with her decision. If I was in her place, I likely would have made the exact same one."

"Well, you are related to me and I must say that I have made the same choice myself, several times," he sighed, looking old, tired, and sad. "It's not like there are always good options."

There was some grunting and a sizzle and then the dimmed lighting came up and the console lit. Koschei crawled out from under and began running diagnostics scans on the ship.

"Which still doesn't answer the question, what about her Anchor?" Susan pointed out.

"What about it?" Rose asked with a perplexed frown.

"Is he even alive?" Koschei asked, shaking his head. "If he's not, will she just burn out?"

"I don't know," the Doctor shrugged.

Susan and Koschei looked at each other and Tomoko got the impression that they were having a deep conversation of some sort.

"Does the Master know?" Tomoko asked Susan and she shook her head.

"Guinn never knew about the secondary purpose, this is all new to him," she replied and Tomoko frowned.

"Guinn?"

"Would you want to spend your life being called the "Master"?" Rose asked with a roll of her eyes.

"No, but I wouldn't want to be the 'Doctor', either," she snarked.

"I was very young!" the Doctor snapped out and crossed his arms with a frown. Rose giggled, but Tomoko noticed that neither Susan nor Koschei did. In fact, Koschei was frowning as he watched the boards.

"I am going to have fix the environmentals again, they are not converting carbon dioxide at a high enough level."

"I can help with that," Tomoko said, and moved over to the needed panels.

"Could you go down to the scrubbers and see if they're getting enough water?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she agreed.

"Thank you! You're the best! It's on Level 17, third turn, seventh door, down the stairs and into the sealed chamber, wear a mask, because even if you would heal from it, it would be really unpleasant, okay?" he told her. "Radios don't work in there, too much ionization, so just ask the butterflies for help if you need anything." He waved and crawled back under the console.

"On it," she said, and left the room, wondering if he'd hit his head on something. Ask the butterflies? Once again she had a feeling that she was missing something.

* * *

Susan turned to look at her grandfather, her face pensive, and continued the conversation.

"This is really bad, you know that," she told him and he nodded.

"If Adie can't control the power, she could take out huge chunks of the galaxy!" Koschei added.

"Excuse me?" Rose exclaimed with wide eyes.

"Remember our conversation about 'Really Bad Things?" Susan reminded her and Rose nodded slowly.

"Yeah, but you used it and didn't do that."

"That I know of," Susan admitted rather softly.

"We'd know!" Rose insisted.

"If she hasn't, it's been because she is extraordinarily stubborn and has a very strong anchor," the Doctor pointed out.

Susan looked at Koschei and felt his agreement in her mind.

"Leave the Arkytior to us," she replied, her voice much calmer than she expected it would be.

"Excuse me?" Grandfather turned and gave her a very steady, but penetrating, look and Susan shrugged.

"I have an Anchor, Adie may not. We'll have to be the ones to deal with the potential damage the Arkytior can cause," Susan answered and he studied her for a while before slowly nodding.

"Very well."

"What about Guinn?" Rose asked and Susan tried to find words, but Koschei spoke first.

"If we do have to haul Adie back from the fire, we're likely going to need his help as well, but we'll try to keep him out of it as much as we can. He's still not even partially healed up yet and being exposed like that could really damage him."

"If we have to call him in, we'll probably already be in over our heads," Susan agreed.

/Together always, love,/ Koschei murmured to her and she turned and smiled sadly at him.

/No matter what,/ she agreed.

* * *

Tomoko found the sealed chamber Koschei had told her about and the masks hanging outside of it. She slipped one on, adjusting the straps, and then pushed open the door.

It was like stepping into a rainforest, only the trees were stretched out on frames, growing in regimented patterns, turned into a filtration system for the air. The space was vast and a heavy cloud of mist covered the ground to her knees, it was damp and a bit prickly feeling. A small surge of electricity shot through the mist and she realized that the prickly feeling was an ion charge. High above, vines and creepers grew, a second layer of filtering after the trees, she deduced. A huge glowing butterfly swooped past her, the size of a dinner plate and she saw the electronics embedded in its wings clearly.

"Well, one mystery solved," she muttered. That must be what Koschei had meant by 'ask the butterflies'.

Tomoko poked at one of the square trees. Weird.

"What's the charge level in here supposed to be?" She called out to the butterfly.

It hovered near her and displayed the correct number and instructions on how to shift the charge properly. It also informed her that there was a blockage in one of the misters.

Tomoko reached up her hand for it, to see if it would alight there, but it simply shifted closer to the controls, acting as a guide for her.

She felt a twinge of sorrow, looking at it.

"Poor thing," she said to it. "Did you used to be a butterfly? Flitting around a forest somewhere, doing butterfly things? I'm sorry he did this to you."

The butterfly's message board shifted to display manufacturing information and computational specifications. The final line was a marketing tagline "More real than real and better engineered!"

Tomoko wondered about the butterfly, even as she followed it. She could find out from Koschei later if it was a manufactured thing, or if it had once been real, and simply filled with electronics. If it had once been real, she could come back later and put it out of its suffering. For now, though, she needed to find the blockage and so headed in the direction indicated.

It led her through the forest, until she reached a table with a pile of crystal blocks scattered across it. At first glance it appeared random, but Tomoko quickly picked out the Fibonacci sequence in the block's arrangement. Several though were misaligned.

"Got it," Tomoko told the butterfly, pulled the misaligned blocks, and began rearranging them into the correct sequences.

Instantly, the low level mist began to shift, the electrical currents got stronger and she could glimpse the floor, which was set with copper tiles and runnels to redirect excess water. The Butterfly flashed a green light and then fluttered over to a hatch with a filigree handle, one of many that studded the floor.

"Right. At least I will be grounded," Tomoko muttered, headed to the hatch, and turned the handle. It clearly hadn't been turned in some time, and she had to struggle with it, but finally got it loose.

Underneath were a series of glass tubes that had water flowing through them at various speeds. One tube was congested with something and the butterfly fluttered at it. The tubes were sectional, with brass connectors between each part. There was a hasp on each connection allowing for them to be pulled out and replaced, or cleaned.

"So where are the replacement tubes?" She asked the butterfly and it displayed the image of a plunger. "There's no plunger here either," she muttered, turning the hasps. "I'll just laze the damn thing out. I don't want to find out what is in it, it is probably full of discarded eyeballs," she scolded it.

In fact, peering at it more closely, it looked more like wadded-up paper inside, she could glimpse a few scribbles in circular Gallifreyan on it.

"Oh there is no way that is paper," she scowled at it, "It would have rotted to nothing by now… sec…" She reached into the pouch she had on her belt, unrolled the wire she had coiled inside, formed it into a hook, and fished for it. It took several tries and some cursing before she finally had a solid hold on it, and pulled.

It felt like paper in her hand, but it hadn't torn from the hook and wasn't even very damp, so it must be something else. It was handwritten, but by someone with excellent handwriting, or from a printing device that mimicked handwritten words.

Tomoko could, with sufficient effort, read Gallifreyan text; but to do so would run her up against the cooling issues she always had, and there was an easier way. She reattached the tube and checked the water, taking the paperish note in her other hand. It was already dry.

The Butterfly seemed contented with her efforts, because it fluttered off and drifted up to the canopy of vines, where it joined a dozen others in a myriad of sparkling jewel-like colours.

Tomoko looked at the way she had come and considered. She headed back to the Fibonacci blocks and climbed up them to get her out of the worst of the static charge, then pulled out her own tablet. She had riffled through the TARDIS thoroughly and had pulled the best one she could locate, had already dismantled and reassembled it, checking for traps and bugs, and transferred data to it.

On the screen, the face of Tomoko Construct came up. She put the page to the screen and the tablet scanned automatically.

"Lockdown mode," she told Tomoko Construct.

"Lockdown mode initiated. All external transmissions blocked. All internal transmissions ceased."

"Translation mode: Gallifreyan to English. Plain-text output."

"Translating," said Tomoko Construct, and the screen blanked out to a white sheet.

* * *

Dear Amaranthia,

I know you expected me back home weeks ago and I wish I could be there with you more than I can say. However, the Lord President himself requested me to put in further work on the project. It's not as though I could refuse. The odds of my returning to you at all if I did, are very slim.

I hate this project though. It's horrible. These girls, they look like they're our daughter's age. I can't believe how horribly the Sistron Articles are being violated by this project. I asked Marainithren if we could lodge a protest, but she said that the last three engineers to do so disappeared. It's terrible here; we're all scared all the time. I can't even bear to look at the girls sometimes, when I think about what they are going to be used for.

The Master has been like a block of ice through it all. It's like he doesn't even care if he's killed. He argues with Rassilon all the time, like he's daring him to execute him. He's entirely focused on the project, talks to us all like we're computers. It's weird; he used to at least be charmingly insane, now he's just dead. He looks like an ice ball now, nothing left in him, I guess.

They brought in a girl, half-feral, we're going to have to flush all the other clones and restart. They insist that her TNA must be used, no other. I say 'they', but of course I mean Rassilon. He's obsessed with the girl, always stroking her head, like she was a pet or something. It's creepy.

Someone's coming; I'll hide this letter and come back later.

I love you, always,

Farian

* * *

Tomoko found her eyes brimming briefly, but swiped the tears away impatiently and read the note again. "Local database search, Sistron Articles," she said.

The Sistron Articles scrolled across the screen, a series of rules and laws about how, when, and to what purposes cloning could be done. No clone was allowed to be created solely for medical experimentation, no clone was allowed to be speed-grown to adulthood, except under specific conditions, all clones were the legal child of their creator, unless adopted by another adult, and the clones were subject to the same legal rights and inheritance of a child. Clones were considered citizens of Gallifrey and were members of the House of their creator.

"Huh," Tomoko pursed her lips. "Local database search: Rassilon."

"Rassilon, Lord President of Gallifrey. Amended text: Massively egotistical arse-wipe, better off dead and forgotten. Text amended by the Doctor. Further information available, but not recommended, because he was a total wanker. Text further amended by the Doctor."

"The Doctor huh? Well, let's try this again." Tomoko packed up and headed out the door. Once the door had been closed to the chamber, and she could use her communicator again, she swapped channels. "Doctor, you there?"

"Tomoko? Hello dear, you got the environmental systems back up to full? Nicely done!" he chirped back at her. "Koschei said you were brilliant and he was quite right!"

"Er… he did?" She was surprised, then scowled, shaking her head. He was not going to distract her. "Yes, but I am onto something new now, I need to talk to you, Where are you?."

"In a room that seems like a cross between bad Goth poetry night and a medieval dungeon," he replied.

"That describes all of the rooms," Tomoko snorted.

"Let's meet in the medi-bay, how's that?" he suggested and she chuckled.

"Meet you there in ten."

"Make that five!" he laughed and she could hear his shoes pounding across the flooring for a moment before the radio signal was cut off.

"Probably more like seven," she muttered, and headed out. But, seven minutes later she found that the Doctor was already there, reading a book and settled into one of the awful chairs..

"'Ello, Tomoko!" he called.

"Everything in here is black, of course, where do you even get black hospital gowns?"

"Speciality store, I suppose. Villains' Vestments, the sort of rubbish place that has really modern art that looks like a dog's widdle, and uncomfortable couches?" he suggested.

"I brought you here because I wanted to talk to you."

"Obviously, did you want to exchange jokes? I love a good joke," he told her.

Tomoko was silent for a long time. Then she reached in her pocket and handed the Doctor the note that she had found.

"This was what was blocking the tubing," she told him.

He read it in silence and frowned.

"I remember him, he was one of mother's students, an expert in Artron energy and its relation to Block Transfer Mathematics," he replied.

"It makes me sad, the letter," she said simply.

"It's a very sad letter. The number of people who were fed into the grist-mill of Rassilon's ambition is terrifying," he replied.

"It ought to go to you or… somebody. A Time Lord somebody I mean."

"He has no next of kin, so we'll give it to Taydin to archive for us, eh?" he suggested and she smiled.

"Done."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17 - Juggling Flaming Chainsaws

Tomoko paced back and forth in the cooling chamber. She had found that there were data cooling rooms and a quick search through the TARDIS system architecture and some poking about for an hour or so had turned up the location of the nearest one.

It was a room with strips of orange lighted panels on the walls and a pillar of metal with a thousand sparkling blue lights flashing up and down it. The Pillar was one the computer systems for the TARDIS' navigational controls and it buzzed and hummed in the icy air, like a giant hulking beast, grumbling in it's sleep. Tomoko found it strangely comforting.

She'd turned the temperature down as far as she could and then began stripping off her coat, kicking off her shoes, and allowing the many drugs in her system to be nullified by the slug attached to her stomach.

Tomoko spent most of her life feeling muzzy-headed. It was necessary, because if she had let her intellect roam as it would, she'd have quickly over-heated and died. But she needed her wits about her and it felt good to be able to think through a problem properly.

The future meeting with Guinn would do for now, as a token to get everything up and running. At some point there would have to be some sort of follow-through, but her first concern was to deal with the aftermath of gathering together all these traumatized and angry people, and the promise of a future meeting date would do that.

There was so much to be done. Everyone needed to be pulled from their respective loops, organized and outfitted, the Manifold would have to be dealt with, the aftermath would have to be worked through. And then what? They'd have to find a place to live, develop some sort of social structure...

The door opened and a ginger head poked in, a pair of warm brown eyes regarding her curiously through the archway.

"Are you busy?" she asked and Tomoko looked at her in surprise.

"Oh… hello Susan… I should have expected to see you, just a minute and I can come out to you, I've got it very cold in here."

"I brought a parka," Susan informed her and came inside, shutting the door behind her. She was wearing a heavy green coat, with fur around the collar and thick gloves, insulated pants and snow boots. She pulled a heavy knit cap down over her hair, so that wisps of red framed her face, and the bulky clothes made her look small and somewhat fragile.

"Dressing for the occasion, I see," Tomoko said with a smile.

"Well, if Muhammad will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Muhammad," she explained. Susan walked up to stand next to the computer, which was generating enough heat to make that part of the room slightly warmer.

Tomoko pondered the Time Lord, her mind whirling through analysis and deductions, running through all the reasons that she might have come here and then popping up the most likely one. The very thing that she'd come to ponder here herself, the Master.

"Well, I suppose the first thing I should say is, I'm sorry for scaring you," Tomoko replied.

"Are you planning on scaring me?" she asked with a bird-like tilt of her head.

"No, not if I can help it."

"Then there is no reason to apologize. My fears are not your responsibility. We can only be responsible for ourselves, after all," she shrugged. "That said, of course I'm worried. I've watched this play out before, after all, and it doesn't get any easier with repetition."

"Watched what all play out, precisely?" Tomoko asked, surprised by the comment.

"Watched people blaming Koschei for the Master's actions, wanting him to pay for those sins, wanting to punish him for their own suffering, because the people who are ultimately responsible are out of reach. It's easy to take it out on him, even though he was as much as victim as they were, because he was there and it was his hands being used," she explained.

She turned Susan's words carefully over in her mind, looking at the many facets of the problem and then nodded slowly.

"I think that's where a lot of us are right now," she said at length. "Look, I…. I didn't set up this meeting to have Guinn strung up by his thumbs. I set it because I need something, I need a… a token. Some of us are angrier than others and some aren't going to be satisfied with anything less than knowing that their grievances are going to be addressed." She paced around. "And we don't have time for that right now, there is the Manifold to deal with, and I wanted to try to have… I don't know, a cooling-off period. For everybody to cool off. For me to cool off." She sighed. "Especially for me to cool off. I am too angry right now. So, I'm, waiting, I guess."

"I can understand being mad, he made you, threw you into a Loop and then scooped you out and put you in stasis, I'd be mad as well," Susan assured her.

"I would have coped with being in stasis," snarked Tomoko. "It was the personality wipe that I hated. I knew it was coming, figured it out months and months ago, had to plan the entire revolution knowing that I…" She shrugged, "... was never going to see it. I was going to end it as a drooling idiot… I programmed Diana-37's notebook with a semi-AI construct, just so that I could be brought back to a level of basic functionality someday, if my body could ever be recovered." She ran her fingers through her hair, making it stick up in every direction. Her aura flared dangerously and painfully bright with the sudden excess of emotion.

"He wiped your personality?" Susan asked in cold clipped tones.

"Of course he did. I knew that he would. I knew it before he pulled us all into stasis. I knew what I was in for." She took a breath and closed her eyes. "Eventually, I will get over it, and then I'll be able to do something productive. But right now…" She shook her head. Her aura was still pulsing furiously. She took deep breaths, trying to will herself to be calm. "Right now, big emotional flare-ups risk overheat and subsequent burn-out," she ground her teeth. "I am not doing a big emotional flare up. Give me a moment."

"You may not, but I rather feel like one," Susan growled.

After several minutes, Tomoko had worked her aura back down to its typical levels of brilliance, instead of the painfully hot glare of light.

"Someday," she confessed, "I would love to be able to scream at something without having to be afraid of catching on fire. For now, though, setting a meeting date and putting it off to some unspecified time in the future seemed like the best option. We'll all have time to cool off. Everyone can familiarize themselves with Koschei, and see for themselves what the Master could be like in the future. If and when we eventually have the meeting, I hope that we could just talk."

"Do you think that working beside him, seeing how he's changed, will get it through to them?" Susan asked. "Because there are people on Gallifrey who, even after six years, still think he'll 'revert to form' at any minute," she sighed and closed her eyes, looking drawn and tired. "How I wish they could see inside his head. If they had any idea..." she trailed off. "I know that you're doing your best, Tomoko, I do. I wish you didn't have to juggle flaming chainsaws, but you do and I understand. It's just so hard to watch people tear those two down as fast as I fix them."

"I can sympathize with that position," Tomoko said. "But right now we're angry, as a rule, and we're tough, and we're very well armed, and we need to work together to combat a mutual threat. That's potentially a very bad combination. I am just…" She rubbed the back of her neck, "trying to defuse what I can."

"I'm going to add in a complication for you," Susan sighed. "I'm the conduit for the Arkytior in this generation and they are my anchors. I'm terrified that one of the Mashas will try to kill him and She will destroy them, before I can get control again. I almost killed Adie when she tried to kill him. If Koschei hadn't stepped between us and talked me back, I'm not sure what would have happened. You say that you're all well-armed, well, you're not. You're hideously vulnerable and I don't want to be turned into a murderer because of this." She looked at Tomoko and her eyes were anguished. "Please do what you have to."

"Why yes, of course I can juggle another flaming chainsaw," Tomoko snarked, but then nodded. Susan barked a laugh of genuine amusement.

"I'm really sorry about that. I didn't want to add to your burdens, really."

"That's all right. I am hoping to be able to put the meeting off long enough for it to basically boil down to an explanation and maybe an apology, if I can work it right. With luck, that will avoid Arkytior entanglements too…" She stopped abruptly and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Let's hope it works."

"Susan, for my own curiosity…"

"Yes?"

"This Arkytior thing… how exactly does it work if there is no anchor?"

"Without an anchor, I would run the very strong risk of burning up completely, probably taking a large chunk of the stellar real estate with me," she sighed, looking troubled. "I'd be long dead by now without Koschei. We're already sort of beyond all previous research."

Tomoko exhaled thoughtfully, her breath icing into a cloud of mist.

"And anchors are unique to the conduit, yes?"

"Yes, it's the only situation in which a marriage bond is actually pre-destined."

"Do you think you can work in tandem with an unanchored conduit?"

"I don't think that two conduits have ever existed at the same time before," she murmured. "However, I am one of the most powerful telepaths my people have produced in a long time, so it's possible." She said it without pride or ego, it was just a fact, like she had brown eyes.

"So that's what we'll do, we'll coordinate somehow…" Even with the freezing temperatures of the room, Tomoko's temperature was rising as her bright eyes bored little holes into the air. She was leaving footprints in her wake as the floor was covered with a delicate layer of frost.

"It would take some planning, but I think it could work," Tomoko muttered.

"It's never been done before, there are no precedents, and it could easily kill all of us," Susan explained calmly. "You don't quite understand the forces in play here. However, if you keep trying to run at this level, you're going to burn yourself out," Susan told her with a concerned expression. "Please be careful."

"I struggle with burnout a lot," she sighed, and bumped the temperature down again.

"There is a way you know, to push you up to being a full Time Lord," she told her, looking unhappy.

"I'm not sure I want to be a Time Lord," Tomoko replied with a frown.

"I don't want you to do something that would make you unhappy, but the way that they structured you is not at all stable," Susan explained. "It may become necessary to bump you up, just to keep you alive."

"I can see that. For the moment, though, I have the interface more or less stabilized. Sort of."

"Well," Susan murmured and looked around at the freezing cold room and then down at where Tomoko's bare feet were melting the frost. "I'm not quite comfortable with the situation as it is," she replied rather diplomatically.

"This? No, this doesn't count… I am deliberately running hot, because I wanted to think clearly for a few minutes. Normally, I don't push the envelope this way."

"Very well," Susan agreed, but her face was rather dubious. "I'll simply observe normal parameters for a time and discuss it again with you later?"

"Yes, an observation period is a sound idea, I agree. You can recommend a better medication regimen than the one I am currently following, I'm sure."

"I dislike drugging in situations like this, but if that is the only assistance I can give, then very well." She looked distinctly unhappy though.

"It's an initial consultation," Tomoko countered. "We see what's what, then figure out a treatment plan. Isn't that how it is supposed to go?"

"When someone has a broken arm, you put it in a cast, Tomoko, you don't just give aspirin. You ought to have yourself expanded, that's the proper solution," she replied with a wry grimace.

"Yes, I understand," Tomoko said. "And it may be a step we need to take, I just… " She exhaled slowly. "Too angry to meet with Guinn in a productive way, is too angry to suddenly have access to vast cosmic powers. No, not now. Not yet. Maybe later, but not now."

"Time Lords do not have vast cosmic powers, Tomoko! Where did you get such a silly idea?" Susan asked with a laugh. Tomoko fixed her with her too-bright eyes.

"I met Rassilon, once, before we were all put into the loops. He had come to visit the station and I was part of this presentation that the other Time Lords had set up, to show off what they were doing." She chewed her lip thoughtfully.

"He asked me a question and didn't like my answer. I'd have been flushed on the spot except that Adie intervened." Her eyes seemed to burn especially brightly for a moment.

"When I think of Time Lords, I think of Rassilon. I think of what the world must look like if you exist in five dimensions; the Doctor described it to me. It sounds amazing. But it's a place I don't want to go when I am angry."

"You don't understand at all, Tomoko," Susan sighed and shook her head. "It's just a different way of seeing the universe, of interacting with it, it doesn't change who you really are. I was put through the Chameleon Arch when I was sent to safety, I was perfectly human for about a year or so, one heart, three dimensions, ask Donna when we get back, she can tell you. Who I am as a person didn't really change at all when I regained my lost memories and abilities, when I re-expanded back to a Time Lord. All that changed was my ability to understand things that I didn't as a human. To feel the turn of the world, the passage of time, to hear the Song of my people, to see the past and the future spooling out from you, to be able to weigh probabilities with a clearer understanding, that's all it is," she explained.

"In China there was a fashion for a time, for tiny feet," Susan muttered, changing the subject suddenly. "One Royal was born with deformed feet, so parents put their infants' feet in metal shoes, never giving them the space to grow. This torture resulted in women that hobbled about, their feet forever cramped and painful. That's what's been done to you, Tomoko, you've been shoved into a tiny metal shoe and not allowed to grow." She shook her head. "It's a mutilation, what they did to you, that's all."

"Yes, I…" She shook her head sadly, "I know. It's just… it's such a big change, and there is so much going on right now and I… I can't do it and do everything else. It's one too many flaming chainsaws. We're so close, we're starting to win our freedom, it's all I've dreamed about… we're just… we're too close now. I hate the metaphorical metal shoes with a passion, but I desperately want to do this first."

"I understand, I really do, it's just a risk. I don't want you to flame out." Susan grinned at her. "I rather like you, you see."

Tomoko blinked in genuine surprise.

"I rather like you too," she confessed. "That surprises me a little. I've always found relationships to be… difficult to navigate."

"Well, me too actually," Susan admitted, blowing a lock of hair off her forehead. "I'm not always able to make friends, really. I mean, people tend to like me, it's just part of being of the Line, we're charming, nice, and friendly... except for Great Uncle Brax, he was just a jerk. But, it's still been a challenge to find people who don't think I'm... odd." She shrugged.

Tomoko raised an eyebrow.

"Odd in comparison to what?"

"Everybody else. Neither fish nor fowl, that's me. Not human enough for humans and not Time Lord enough for Time Lords, raised everywhere and nowhere, with no fixed point of abode for most of my life. Gypsies are not often welcomed, you know, too broad an outlook, I think," she mused.

Tomoko pondered this.

"The only metric which I possess for comparison is ourselves. I think we are odder than you are."

Susan grinned and ticked off on her fingers.

"I'm an alien avatar of an ancient power, who's married to two versions of the same man, has travelled through time and space, fought in wars that never were, and caused both great good and great harm, I'm five hundred years younger than both my husbands, who were the childhood friend of my grandfather, I'm living in an alternate universe and cloning my race back from the dead."

"I was made to be a disposable clone, a throwaway, as a replacement for a Time Lord whom Rassilon was reluctant to risk; have never previously travelled anywhere, outside of the Loops, have 74 sisters, and am working on extricating ourselves from the prisons in which we have been housed. It's just a different sort of odd, really."

"Yeah, I suppose so," Susan chuckled. "Maybe that's why we get along so well."

"Maybe so. I have never had the chance to get along with anyone before. Perhaps that is why I find now that I like it."

"No, I have gotten along with lots of people, but it's rare to find someone who really understands what it's like to be perpetually on the outside of everything, that never gets old. You know, Grandfather thinks you would do well working with Dar and the more I see of you, the more I think he's right. It would challenge you and give you puzzles to work out and Dar would be challenged by you, which would do him good too," Susan mused and nodded. "Still, let's save the universe first and work out your future later," she chuckled.

"I agree, thinking session is over, just a minute…" Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head for a very brief instant as her aura noticeably dimmed. When she blinked, her eyes were back into their proper alignment, but very definitely dilated. "Brrr… let me fix the temperature back to normal and I will walk out with you," she said, walking a not-exactly-straight line to the control.

"You've dropped your metabolism and upped your serotonin significantly, your heartbeat is slower and your brain activity has dropped," she murmured with interest. "That's clever of you, did you hack the slug?"

She walked back across the room.

"The slug was the very first thing I ever hacked," she smiled at her. "It allows me to go a long way in temperature control."

"Yes, I can see that. "It's funny, you and I are a lot alike and we have the same problem. The potential of going up in flames," Susan mused and opened the door, stepping into the hall. Susan took off her coat and gave Tomoko a wry smile. "Guinn and I will be heading over to my TARDIS, while you pick up the others. Grandfather thought it was... prudent," she explained. "Koschei is staying here for a while, to help with the repairs."

"And to let the others all see him and get used to him," Tomoko added and Susan grinned.

"Yes, that too. I just don't think that Guinn is ready to face them yet, that's all."

"They're not ready to face him either," Tomoko agreed and Susan nodded.

"No. You're doing well though," Susan pointed out.

"I have to do well. There is no other option," Tomoko admitted and Susan smiled at her.

"I really do like you," she admitted, her smile broadening. "I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

Tomoko stared after her as Susan walked away.

* * *

Koschei looked up as Tomoko came into the console room, adjusting his shields so that she wasn't so hard to look at straight on. Rose was still curled up in her chair and Koschei was feeling a bit worried about her. She might have been mostly healed, but her injury had been damn near permanently fatal. Susan had gone back to work and he could feel the gentle hum of her mind in his, though, he realized, he could also hear the echo of Guinn working as well. He wrenched his mind back to what he was doing, not quite ready to deal with that revelation.

"Environmental is up to Ninety-eighty percent efficiency," he told Tomoko. "Rotor is functioning again now, we're good to go."

"Anything else you would like me to check on? If not, we could use the time it will take to repair Susan's TARDIS to bust into the other loops, and pick up the other Mashas, if you wanted. We'll eventually need them for the Lens."

"Don't we need two for that?" Rose asked.

"Not necessarily, we're already in, we just need to move around a bit," Koschei told her and she nodded.

"We have Diana-37's coordinates and Loop, so we can pick them all up any time," Tomoko reminded them.

"Right," the Doctor agreed.

"Ready when you are then," she smiled at them.

"Right, let's go gather Mashas!" the Doctor said with a grin.

Susan and Guinn appeared in the archway and Koschei went to hug and kiss her. She looked up at him unhappily.

"Will you be okay?" she asked softly and he could sense that she was torn just then, so he smiled broadly and chuckled, filling his mind with warmth and confidence.

"Of course I will be," he assured her and kissed her again. "You two get to work on the Nanites and stay safe, all right."

/I'm depending on you to guard her,/ he sent to Guinn who nodded.

/With my life,/ he agreed and then took Susan's hand and led her out. She looked back at him, still obviously torn.

"Go on, get moving, we can't start the party till you're gone, after all," he teased. "The Doctor promised to talk about nothing but engineering for the next six hours!" Susan laughed and fled the TARDIS, though Guinn looked back rather mournfully.

"But, that sounds like fun!" he protested as Susan dragged him away.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 - Consensus Building

They materialized in a desert realm, sand blowing across the dunes. There were clearly figures over the nearby ridge.

"That's them," said Tomoko, then headed to the door. "Give us ninety minutes to talk and then I'll bring them back down."

Koschei nodded.

"Stay here. Don't come out.." Tomoko waved, then headed out the doors.

"She does know that we're Time Lords, right? Veterans of the Time War, nearly two thousand years of experience between us?" the Doctor grumbled. Koschei turned on the screen, so that the Doctor could see the horde of slavering monsters outside.

"Right." He stared at the screen. "Don't really feel like going out right now," he decided. "I choose to stay here."

Koschei hid his smile, but it was hard, when Rose was grinning broadly at them.

* * *

"Tomoko-6, in range," announced Tomoko Construct. The girls all stopped and looked around. They could see her. Coming up the dune, waving at them.

Jake looked up and nodded.

"Right, I see a TARDIS down there, let's get the Amazons moving, okay?" he suggested.

"No," said Tomoko Construct. "Tomoko-6 has designated this as a meeting spot. She has called for a conference prior to returning to the TARDIS."

"That's cool," Jake said, shrugged, and sat down on a rock, eyes roaming the area for any signs of danger.

* * *

Tomoko-6 arrived to general cheers.

"OK, folks, listen up! We don't have a lot of time and there's a lot of information we need to get to. Some of this is going to be extremely unpleasant." Everyone sat down and made themselves comfortable, and Tomoko-6 spent some time talking about the Loops, the Manifold, the Time Lords, and the general plan to fire the Lens.

Jake sat and listened. Most of it he already knew, but the Lens stuff was interesting. He noted that Tomoko left things out and he expected that it was because the Doctor had asked her to be discreet.

The girls listened intently; and then they started to pick up on it. A sort of frisson went around them. They started standing up, their scowls deepening.

"Are you telling us," said Maureen-65 at last. "That the Master is still alive?"

Tomoko sighed and her eyes brightened visibly.

"Not only is he still alive, he is working with the Time Lords, and we are going to need him. We're not killing him. We're not even hurting him. We are keeping our hands off. All of us."

There was almost a riot. There was a lot of shouting. Tomoko was trying to shout back, but her voice was drowned out by scores of others.

"This could get ugly," Masha-37 whispered into his ear and he nodded. He knew what was at stake and it looked like Tomoko's education hadn't included motivational speaking.

"Hey," he called loudly and stood up. Faces turned to look at him and he looked back at them. They had fought together side by side and he knew he had their respect, as they had his.

"What do you want more, freedom or revenge?" he asked, looking around at them all and they gazed back, many of them looking bitter and angry, others just looking like they wanted to cry. "Because, right now, you can't have both. You want justice? You want to punish him? I understand that. I've been here for only two years and I want to kick someone hard! The thing is, I want you all to get out of here a lot more than I want revenge. You want freedom, right? You want out of these hell holes and to live somewhere where you aren't fighting to survive every moment? Well, the price for that is to wait for a while." He took a breath, meeting their eyes, one by one, impressing on them the seriousness of what he was about to say.

"Tomoko just said that the universe is in danger, that people's lives are at stake. Well, here it is. You've all spent centuries trapped in here, not able to stop the horrors around you, not able to change anything. Now's your chance. You want to save lives? You want to help people? You've all told me how hard it was to watch people dying, over and over, with no way to prevent it, or change it. Now you can change it. So, do you want that more than you want to kill one man? Who are you going to choose to be? Are you going to be the people who sacrificed all life everywhere for your vengeance, or the people who chose life over death, helping over harming? In the end, this is your choice; will you be weapons or will you become so much more than that?" he asked them and there was a stillness around him as they digested that thought.

It was what he'd been thinking about for two years, as he gathered them, and he needed to know the answer now, before he saw them let loose on the universe.

Tomoko nodded at him and he sat down, while she stood up and took over.

"The price for our help was that when this is over we will have a meeting with him," she explained and several faces relaxed. "But, that can't happen till this is done, okay? So, no one comes on board, unless you agree that we are not going to harm him," Tomoko-6 bit out, holding up her hands for silence, "He has been effectively neutered. He can never touch us again. He can never hurt us again. Now it is time to let go of him and move on with claiming our lives and dealing with the Manifold. Are we agreed?"

There was silence.

"Are we agreed?"

Diana-37 was looking at Jake, watching him, studying his face. Finally she pulled off her glove to show her number, and held up her hand, the first of all of them to do so. A few more followed, until the vast majority of them were holding up their hands, displaying their numbers. There were a few uncomfortable minutes where a couple of the holdouts grumbled rather tearfully, but at last everyone was holding their hands up. Tomoko looked at Jake.

He held up his hand and then turned it into a fist-pump.

"Let's get the fuck out of here, Amazons!" he cried. "Cause I am sick of crab!"

There was a bit of a ragged cheer. It was pretty rough at first, but then it seemed to catch on. Everyone took up the fist-pump: and then they all ran, pell-mell, for the TARDIS they could see on the sands.

Diana-37 slipped her hand into his.

"That was amazing," she told Jake as they ran. "The way you talked them all down. I am so proud of you!" He shrugged.

"That's my job, Angel, Head of Field Operations, Torchwood. Personnel management comes with that," he murmured. "Now, let's blow that thing and go home, I'd like you to be able to ravish me in comfort." He leaned in and kissed her softly and grinned.

"That will never happen," she growled, "Because I am going to tie you up and make you mine." She gave him her best "grrrr" face, then kissed him back.

"I meant your comfort, Angel, not mine," he grinned.

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"But you are what makes it comfortable," she said, with a wide happy smile.

"Love you," he whispered and held her hand tightly in his as they headed to freedom.

* * *

Koschei was lying on the floor of the TARDIS playing pick-up sticks. It was silly, he knew, but the Doctor hated waiting, he would get manic and nervous and pace. Rose was sitting nearby, her back to the wall, working on the equations for the Lens. She looked better, but still more pale than he liked to see.

That left Koschei with Doctor-amusing duty. Rose grinned at him from over her notepad and he snorted. For all that Theta was his oldest and dearest friend, he was deeply grateful for Rose Tyler. She was his friend as well and she had a deep appreciation for the problems of 'managing' the Doctor, so he felt as though he had an ally when dealing with him. Well, when she wasn't being just as bad and egging him on.

"What do you think she's saying to them?" Rose asked, looking over at the view screen.

In the image, Tomoko was talking to a group of the Mashas and Jake.

"Would you please be so kind as to refrain from lynching Guinn, at least until after we've saved the universe?" Koschei replied, his tone rather dry.

"Now now, you know that Tomoko has no interest in killing Guinn," the Doctor chided. "She's been really rather forgiving and compassionate, really."

"Yeah, but she's not the only one we have to worry about," Rose countered. "Neveah would like to take him apart with her bare hands, no rope necessary."

"She's not the only one either, Sara, Tyler, and Evie aren't thrilled with the ceasefire, promise of 'future justice' or no," Koschei agreed.

"But they all like you," the Doctor shot back and pointed at Koschei. "You're the other version of him and they all rather like you. The more they are around you and the longer this goes on, the less they will want to kill him."

"A good point," Rose agreed, nodding thoughtfully. "Besides, if all else fails we have our secret weapon."

"Our secret weapon?" Koschei asked in confusion.

"Susan." The Doctor grinned at him. "All she ever has to do is start pleading with people, tears in her eyes, face all sad and a little disappointed, and they fall in line. I mean Andred couldn't bring himself to hurt you and he hates you!" Koschei winced at that and Rose glowered at the Doctor.

"He doesn't actually, not anymore," Rose interjected. "He's having a hard time relaxing and just trusting that you really are not the Master anymore, but he doesn't hate you."

"No, he just expects me to twirl my moustache and cackle and try to take over the universe," Koschei shrugged and Rose grinned at him.

"Silly man, you've got your hands full already! Keeping the Doctor out of trouble is a full time occupation," she teased and the Doctor pouted.

"Yeah, but I'm the only one doing that," Koschei snarked. "You keep getting him into more!"

"Well," Rose replied with wide innocent eyes. "Anything I can do to keep the universe safe from your evil machinations..."

Koschei snorted and the Doctor laughed.

"You two are perfect for each other," Koschei scolded, but he was more amused than upset and the Doctor and Rose both grinned.

"Yeah," she agreed and the Doctor took her hand.

"Quite right," he murmured.

* * *

"I didn't calculate properly for Jake's presence," said Tomoko when she came into the TARDIS a full forty-five minutes early. "You don't mind if we are early, do you?"

The three Time Lords looked up from what they were doing, Koschei and the Doctor were playing a game with a multitude of coloured sticks and tweezers, while Rose smiled up at her from her spot on the floor.

"No, Koschei was winning, so really, you're just in time!" the Doctor said.

Jake, Diana-37, and the rest of the group came in behind her, looking around at the TARDIS in wonderment.

"Hello!" Jake called and Rose jumped up and tackle hugged him, grinning from ear to ear.

"Jake! I'm so glad that you're not an old man!" she burbled to his evident surprise.

"Me too," he agreed. "Any reason why I might be?"

"We got worried about the time differential, with you being in there so long!" Rose informed him and he nodded slowly.

"Well, it's been two years, Rose," he admitted and she looked miserable.

"Oh, Jake!" she hugged him.

"It's okay, I've made some amazing new friends," he told her and gestured at the Mashas.

"Wow! Look at you al! You're all so very different! That's amazing!" The Doctor said, grinning and the girls and then hugging Jake and Diana hard. "So glad to see you both back safe!"

"Of course I am back safe," Diana-37 said. "I told you I would be fine!"

"Right, So, this is the Doctor, Koschei, and Rose," Diana introduced the Mashas to the Time Lords. "We managed to find twenty-seven of them, total," she added and the Doctor nodded.

"So, only forty-six to go!" the Doctor said bracingly.

* * *

Adie approached Jake shyly. "Are you all right?" She asked him. She was clearly nervous to be around so many people, but she was very glad to see him.

"Of course, they hardly let me have any fun at all," he informed her, gesturing at the Mashas. "Practically sat on me when things got hairy."

"Someone had to keep you out of trouble," a grim faced Masha informed her. "Moira-3," she introduced herself. Adie was startled by how much older she looked.

"Yes, ma'am," Jake replied, smiling at Moira.

"Uh, hi, I'm Adie," she replied.

"Yes, we know who you are," Moira-3 replied, eyeing her with interest before she walked off to look at the rest of the TARDIS.

"Don't mind her, she's been in a Loop for about two thousand years," Jake explained.

Adie's hands jumped to her mouth. "I've been afraid of the time differentials."

"Yes, that is just one of our problems," Tomoko said easily. "But: first things first. Let's get everyone fed, cleaned, and clothed, and then we can see about picking up the rest…"

* * *

Koschei made the effort to interact with them all. It was hard, because he could see suspicion and wariness in some of them, but he tried anyway. If they could see him, Koschei, as not being a threat anymore, then, maybe, they could make that leap to seeing Guinn that way as well.

"What are you going to do about the Auto-Gravity System?" a Masha asked him. She had short, somewhat curly hair, was wearing overalls, and had a tool belt draped over her hips.

"Repair it?" he replied, a bit taken aback. "I'm Koschei," he introduced and she nodded.

"Zoi-29," she responded. "If we take out the redundant circuits on the particle analysis spectrometer, we can use those to repair the Auto-Gravity System," she told him and he nodded.

"Yes, we could, but you'll need to recalibrate the B-34z conduits though, they aren't set up to handle that sort of load," he replied, grateful to have a conversation with someone that made sense to him.

"Do we have the equipment for that?" she asked and he nodded, leading her off to the Workshop.

Zoi-29 walked into his workshop and stopped dead in her tracks, mouth open, and tears starting in her eyes.

"An... Ion Lathe," she choked out and Koschei nodded, understanding perfectly.

"Yeah. I know," he replied and put an arm around her shoulders. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" She nodded, still teary-eyed. "You want to help me mill some of the pieces?" he asked and she looked up at him, her face looking as though he'd offered her the moon, and nodded slowly.

Together they went to work and he pretended not to see her petting the tools and crying.

Tomoko came in with some folded cloth in her hands. She looked at Zoi-29, who was hugging a laser jigsaw with a look of utter bliss on her face, and then over at Koschei.

"Is she all right?"

"She's an engineer, of course not," he teased and Tomoko shook her head and chuckled.

"Here," she said, and put the cloth down on the table. "This is… um… from some of the Master's, I guess we could call it personal stock? We'll need a bunch of them to pull off the Lens run," She winked at him, then slipped from the room again.

Puzzled, he unfolded the cloth.

It was a stealth suit. He had had no idea that his other self had made something of this sort. It was white and the fabric was marked in hexagons. It had a helmet and gloves. It could render the wearer all but invisible and was rated for deep space work. They would be perfect for the Mashas to wear, as they would have to be outside the TARDIS when the lens was fired and the likelihood was that they would be fighting the bug outside of atmosphere. There was a note on it: "74 girl suits, 1 boy suit needed."

He walked over the nano-fabricator and checked it. The pattern was stored exactly where he would have put it and he added some base stock and set it to replicate, while he ransacked Guinn's computers for the original design. Adjusting the plumbing for a boy would be the tricky bit.

"That's going to be a pain to replicate, we'll probably need to refill the bins several times and add some more processing power to handle it," Zoi muttered and Koschei grinned at her.

"You're on a TARDIS, Zoi," he reminded her and with a flourish he pulled back a wall panel to reveal several heavy duty data ports. "We have processing power to spare." Zoi looked at the ports and burst into happy tears again, before she hugged him tightly.

"I love this place!" she sobbed and Koschei patted her gently.

"Yeah, me too."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19 - Another Bug Hunt

Jake looked up when he heard the Doctor's quiet cursing.

"What?" he asked and the Doctor pointed at the screen.

"They've noticed us," he replied and Jake watched as a couple of large beetles trundled over the top of a nearby hill, heading towards the two TARDIS.

"Bugger that for a lark," Jake sighed and the Doctor nodded.

"Susan's TARDIS can't move yet," Rose pointed out.

"Well have to see if we can't discourage them from eating us, then," the Doctor muttered. "Give them indigestion at least."

"On it." Neither of them had even noticed that Diana-37 had come to lounge in the doorway; now she turned and headed down the hallway, pulling her earpiece from her pocket.

"Tomoko! We have incoming!"

"How many?"

"Two beetles immediately visible, about car sized."

Tomoko began snapping out orders and the Mashas scrambled out of their rooms, down the hallways, and out of the doors.

* * *

Diana-37 stepped out into the freezing air and felt the chill on her skin with a shock. The vast wasteland around her was empty of everything, but the glinting silver insects. The wind was blowing through the nearby ruins, howling like a lost soul and she tried not to think about all the people who'd once lived there.

A beetle trundled over the hill towards her, moving slowly but inexorably towards the two TARDIS. Moira, Devorah, and Madison flanked it moving together weapons at the ready and faces tense. They couldn't feel pain, but they were quite well aware that they could die.

Moira smiled grimly at the other two.

"Two thousand years or so, all I fought was one enemy," she grumbled. "Not sure what sort of tactics to use on a bug."

"They're just tanks, really," Madison pointed out.

"Right," Moira sighed. "What's a tank?" Devorah chuckled.

"Roll 'em over and smash 'em," she told her sisters and they both nodded.

* * *

Diana had Nikki and Neveah as her team. She took them on because they were both, in their own ways, utterly mad. Neveah had a neck or nothing attitude and Nikki was just so focused on fighting that she rarely paid much attention to anything else.

"Nikki, you watch our six, Neveah flank right, I'll go left," she instructed, hoping that all the months she'd been pounding the idea of teamwork into their heads would pay off. Teaching a group of perpetual loners to work together had been a lot harder than she'd ever thought it would be.

Nikki ignored her and charged the beetle head on, her monofilament blade humming in the cold still air.

"Damn," Diana grumbled, this always happened with her. She pulled out her sandgun and put it in the creature's face. She pulled the trigger and the resultant explosion of silicates caused its head simply vanished into a fine silver mist, the rest of its body breaking up into its silver-dollar-sized brethren.

"I was on it!" Nikki protested.

"We work as a team!" Diana snapped at her.

A loud humming noise pulled their minds back to the fight as three large Wasps came over the hill to join the remaining Beetle.

A wasp dived at Neveah and she dodged a moment too late. The stinger went through her chest and she screamed in fury as the venom hit her system, then collapsed, paralysed as the Wasp sprayed out a silvery mist over her that quickly started to harden and encase her.

"Nev!" Nikki shouted and leapt over her fallen sister, slashing at the Wasp with her swords.

Diana ran forwards, grabbing Neveah and hoisting her over her shoulder.

"I'll get her to Susan!" she yelled and ran with the dead weight of her paralysed sister, driving her boots deep into the snow.

Behind her, Nikki-69 said nothing, just fought with all of her fury and skill to keep the Wasp from moving closer to the TARDIS.

* * *

It was Evie-44 that was snared first. She turned and there was a wasp, about the size of the beetles, tilting its head back and forth in a rhythm. She pointed her blaster at its head, but then her eyes glazed over. She stood stock still for a minute, and then began tilting her own head, back and forth, back and forth.

Diana ran to her.

"Evie! Get out of…" but her voice trailed away and her own head began tilting back and forth, back and forth. The third girl to try and get them out was soon caught the same way.

"Koschei! Doctor!" Tomoko's voice broke in on the radio, knowing that they were listening in on the console. "I've got Mashas going off-line, it's something psychic, do something!"

"It doesn't quite work that way!" the Doctor snapped back.

"Got it!" Zoi's voice crackled from the radio. From her belt pouch she pulled an odd looking grenade. There was a flash when it burst, and then everything was in motion. The three Mashas were moving again and the wasp was reeling backwards, pawing clumsily at its antennae.

It took fourteen minutes, an eternity as far as battles went, before they were finally able to clean up the last of the bugs.

* * *

They made for a dreary picture when they limped painfully back aboard the TARDIS.

Susan had rushed over from her TARDIS, with K-9, and was scanning them for injuries. She was nervous at leaving Guinn alone, but she had no other choice, she had to help the Mashas and he certainly wasn't going to be welcome by them.

The damage was horrifying. There were holes in hands and missing fingers. Four of the girls were so covered in silver goop they were all but suffocating in it, unable to get it off of themselves. Two of them had had such serious holes put in them that they were unconscious. Zoi had been blinded and Evie's arm had broken at a bad angle, then healed. It would have to be re-broken and straightened.

Susan chivvied them into the medi-bay, K-9 at her heels, and went to work. She triaged the worst injuries first and forced herself not to think about the War. It was hard, when they lay on the beds, like the soldiers she'd treated back then, but she forced a cheerful smile to her face and chattered pleasantly to them, as she repaired what could be repaired and reset things to heal on their own, the Masha's healing factor being quite as fast as Gallifreyan medicine would have been.

It was the silver goop that was the worst. Highly toxic and almost virulent in nature, it was all but impossible to get off. It refused to scrape, resisted solvents, wanted very much to soak into tender tissue to work its mischief. It stuck to absolutely everything.

Susan was forced to dose them in alkaloids and then carefully peel it off, a small bit at a time, handing the flecks over to K-9 to incinerate.

It took most of the day, but at last all the Mashas were sleeping it off, curled up in various beds.

* * *

"Thank you," Tomoko said to Susan. She had been hanging out in the medi-bay for hours, alternating between staying out of the way and helping where she could. "It was two beetles and three wasps, and we're down three quarters of our forces." She shook her head, biting her lip.

"The Rani was insane, but not really stupid," Susan sighed out. "Barmy cow."

"We can't do another fight like this, we'll have to draw them out of the area… let me talk to Koschei." Tomoko turned and put her hand on Jake's shoulder. "She'll be fine," she told him bracingly.

"Yeah," he murmured, looking unhappy and somewhat unconvinced.

"Trust me," Susan teased him softly, giving his shoulder a small shake. "I'm a really good doctor."

Tomoko left Susan to comfort Jake, and went to find Koschei.

* * *

Koschei looked up from under the console and blinked at her, looking tired and rather worn. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a button down shirt, which looked incongruous with his grease smeared face and the pile of tools and the stacks of circuit boards that surrounded him.

"Wow, you look like hell… you OK? Here, I brought you some tea." Tomoko told him and sat down nearby.

"Thank you," he replied a bit wryly. "I feel like hell." He took the teacup from her and sipped gratefully.

"I need bait, Koschei. I need bug bait. Any suggestions?" She jerked her head towards medi-bay. "We ran up against two beetles and three wasps and just about everyone is down because of it. We can't do another fight like this."

"Um... metals?" he suggested. "That seems to be their only real interest." He closed his eyes, thinking hard. "If he still has it, there was a bunch of stuff in the storerooms that you could use."

"I'll put something together, see if I can get us a clear patch, at least for a while." She gave him a piercing look. "How you holding up?"

"Too much to do to really think about it," he chuckled. "Got to get both of them up and running, or we'll never get out of the Loops," he explained and then dived back under the console.

"Right, I'll leave you to it… thanks for the tip, I'll check the store rooms."

In the storeroom she found the Doctor and Rose, already sorting through boxes.

"'Ello, dear," Rose said with a smile. "We're looking for the exact right gift for a giant metal hungry bug."

"So was I," Tomoko murmured in surprise.

"Great minds and all that," the Doctor chuckled and kept sorting.

Rose was taking things from him and putting them on a float cart and with a shrug, Tomoko joined in.

Some time later, the Doctor and Tomoko trooped out into the snow. towing the float cart behind them. Rose had stayed behind, under stern warning from Susan to rest, as she still wasn't completely healthy yet.

The Doctor was waving his sonic about as they went and then they both froze as a cricket, the size of a fingernail leapt from the snow to land on Tomoko's collar. They both stood there, perfectly still, until they realized that the insect was merely cleaning it's antennae and then it hopped away, leaving them baffled.

"It didn't attack," the Doctor mused.

"No." Tomoko looked around until she found it again, all alone, happily munching on a pebble. Tomoko reached down and picked it up, while the Doctor whipped out his sonic and took a few readings.

"I'm scanning with passive sensors," he explained softly. "I'm wondering if it's active emissions that set it off."

"It hasn't shown the faintest interest in biting me," she pointed out, though she had her weapon ready in the other hand. At the moment, it was acting for all the world like a biological cricket, turning in slow circles and occasionally rubbing its legs together to make a sort of metallic "cheep" noise. She could hear other metallic crickets in the area making the same noises, but none were within sight.

"No, it's not at all interested in either of us," the Doctor agreed. "They are designed to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, gathering mass and processing power, this one is so tiny, the base unit, could it be that it requires greater intelligence for them to recognize a threat?"

"They spend hours and hours like this," she told the Doctor, while turning the cricket around on her finger tip. "Just flitting about, minding their own business, and not caring in the slightest about humans or Time Lords or TARDIS, or anything else. Then all at once they go mad, and fly at anything that moves. I know that's not random behaviour. But what causes it?"

"The correct set of triggers obviously," the Doctor agreed. "Which we aren't giving them, just now. Energy sources? Active sensors? Telepathy? Or several of those things in conjunction? It would be rather nice to know how not to annoy them."

"Yes, it would," Tomoko sighed. She threw an old rusted nut on the ground, and put her hand next to it. The cricket hopped off at once, settled on the nut, and began chewing on it contentedly.

"What's that? A Wasp's nest?" the Doctor asked and Tomoko turned to look.

Four hundred feet away, she spotted it, and they got close enough to observe it, although they were careful to give it a very wide berth.

"They're making cells," Tomoko murmured and the Doctor nodded. The wasps were intent on their work, making small octagonal shapes from plastics, metals, whatever they could find and weld together.

"Why a spiral?"the Doctor asked and then looked at Tomoko with a raised eyebrow. "That's a bit odd and far more symmetrical than any biological insect would make it. It's like a mechanical rendering of the perfect wasp's nest." He frowned and she nodded her agreement.

"They couldn't care less about us either," she murmured gesturing at the wasps. They were passive and seemingly content on building their little cells, when earlier that afternoon they had been determined to dismantle anything that dared to move.

"We're missing something here, something vital," the Doctor agreed.

"I know, but I can't think what it might be." she replied.

"We're lacking data," he sighed. "It's always a mistake to theorize without data. Let's put out our bug chow and keep watching them. Maybe it will come to us." Tomoko nodded, not sure what else they could do.

* * *

Several hours later they trudged into the Console room and found Koschei bent over the controls.

"Hello, you two, I've found a tiny little ray of hope," he told them "But, it's really tiny."

"I'll take it… what have you got?" Tomoko asked and the Doctor crossed to look at the screen Koschei was working at.

"Interesting," he murmured and Koschei shook his head in amusement. "The oscillating shields, the frequency that bumped the last locusts off, it appears to be a weakness. Mind you, once we use it, they'll adapt and evolve and it won't be any use anymore, but it might give us one good shot," the Doctor explained.

"It's better than nothing."

"How are you doing?" Koschei asked the Doctor and he frowned.

"They nearly killed my wife," he pointed out. "Right now? I'm a bit angry."

Koschei looked uncomfortable at that and Tomoko nodded.

"She'll be all right," she said.

"Of course she will," the Doctor replied, with an airy wave. "My granddaughter is an excellent doctor, but I am still rather put out that she was in such a situation at all. The Rani is very lucky that she's dead right now," he said, his voice calm, but his eyes blazing. Tomoko smiled at him.

"So, you've come around to our more violent point of view?" Koschei teased and the Doctor frowned.

"I would have preferred to have found another way, you know that," he replied and Koschei nodded.

"I do, but I don't think that there was much we could do, really." Koschei was chewing his lip meditatively.

They all turned to look at the screen, where the sun was setting into the snow and in the distance flashes of light, like the twinkling of far off stars gave away the positions of more insects.

"They're pretty, aren't they?" Tomoko said, playing with the data on her tablet. "From a distance. Even close up, individually, they really are lovely. For insects, I mean."

"Yes, utterly beautiful, it's a shame that they're so horribly destructive. She could have done so much good with them,"the Doctor sighed.

"There's something…" She shook her head. "Something is there, and we are missing it. Looking right past it. But it's there, I know it, like catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye. But I can't quite grasp it."

"Like what?" Koschei asked with interest.

"Something about how they behave, there has to be an underlying logic to it all, a pattern to explain their observable behaviour," she replied.

"It'll come to us. Hopefully, before we are all eaten," the Doctor replied cheerfully.

"One would hope," she scowled, and settled down to work.

* * *

"This isn't working," Koschei complained.

"What isn't working?" Rose asked.

"Guinn over there working on Susan's TARDIS, while the rest of us are over here," the Doctor sighed out. "It would go faster if we fixed this one completely and then all went over to fix hers together."

"It would," Koschei agreed.

"But... the Mashas...," Rose murmured.

"Will be fine," Diana assured them as she came in. "I, for one, am kind of curious to see what he's like these days." She glanced at Koschei with a speculative look and he smiled at her.

"What about the others, some of them really want to string him up," Rose pointed out.

"No," Diana replied. "They want to string up the Master. I think that once they realize that the Master is gone forever, they'll get over that."

"I'm not sure I'm willing to risk his life on that assumption," Rose argued, but Diana shook her head.

"You won't be. We voted and everyone promised. They won't break that promise," Diana replied.

Rose studied Diana's face for a long moment and then nodded.

"Susan will be pretty worried, can you go tell her?" she asked Koschei and he nodded and left the room. The Doctor tapped the console and Guinn's face appeared on the screen a moment later.

"We need your help over here and the Mashas have promised not to kill you," the Doctor informed him and Guinn winced before nodding.

"I'm on my way," he said softly and Diana's face was thoughtful as the image faded.

* * *

When Guinn walked into his TARDIS, he felt like stepping in front of a firing squad would have been less nerve-wracking. He was utterly terrified, but he had been growing lonely and rather maudlin, all alone in Susan's TARDIS. Susan ran to him and wrapped her arms around him, holding him and his tense fearful body started to relax a bit. Her touch was magical for him and he held her tightly, just glad to be near her.

"Hello, love," she murmured and he buried his face in her hair for a moment, before gently releasing her and straightening.

He looked around the room and saw the same face, duplicated many times, but each one with different shades of emotion. Looking at them, he was struck again by how tiny they were, all about five foot four or thereabouts and so very young looking. He couldn't believe that he'd harmed them, especially when they'd been essentially children.

"I'll get to work on those systems, shall I," he murmured softly and looked down at the floor, feeling overwhelmed and rather ashamed of himself.

There was dead silence in the room. All of the faces looked angry. Several of the Mashas were blocking the hallway, because that was where they had been standing when Guinn had come in. Nobody shifted.

After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Tomoko-6 crossed her arms.

"You heard the man. We have repairs to make."

Many of the Mashas looked at each other.

"Go on."

There was a delay of about a minute and then they moved, shuffling away from the hallway, parting like the red sea. His path was clear.

The Doctor stepped forwards and walked with Guinn, as he headed towards engineering and he was grateful for the implicit support of the gesture. He wanted to say something, to apologize, to explain, but the faces around him were all closed and angry and he didn't know what to say.

Susan smiled at him and headed back to the medical bay. He looked at the Doctor and tried to remind himself that he hadn't been abandoned.

The Mashas all stared after him as he walked down the hallway, until he was well away; and then immediately fell into whispered conversations with each other. It was the first time that most of them had seen Guinn, in the flesh, since being banished to the Loops.

He felt rather like a condemned prisoner walking towards the gallows, as their angry eyes lingered on him.

The sad part was that he found that he couldn't blame them at all, not for any of it. In their place, he'd have wanted to kill him too.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 - Reset

"Still breathing?" the Doctor asked him and Guinn nodded.

"Mostly," he replied.

"This is going much better than I ever hoped," his best mate told him with a broad grin. "I was sure they were going to tear you apart."

"Your bedside manner needs improvement," Guinn snarked and the Doctor laughed.

"Come on, let's get this old girl flying!" came the reply and Guinn just sighed. The Doctor never changed, even when everything else did.

* * *

When the reset hit, none of the Time Lords were ready for it. For Jake and the Mashas it was just a thing to be gotten through, but for people whose time sense was inherently part of themselves, it was devastating.

Rose tumbled over, feeling as though the ground had gone unsteady beneath her feet. Susan grabbed a counter, clinging tightly to it as a wave of dizziness rolled over her. The Doctor cried out, arms windmilling as he fought to stay upright.

Only Koschei, Guinn, and Adie didn't fall down and only because they were already prone, underneath stations in engineering, working on repairs.

"Bloody hell!" Koschei roared.

Tomoko's voice came over the intercom. "Reset! Reset! We're resetting!"

"That is rather unpleasant!" the Doctor agreed, holding onto the console like a drunk clinging to a light pole.

"Reset?" Rose asked, looking up at him from the floor, feeling as though she were in a boat in choppy seas.

"Beginning of the Time Loop, Rose," the Doctor replied.

"Wait, beginning of the bloody war?" she cried, face going pale.

"Bugger," Guinn muttered over the intercom.

"Look at the monitor! Look at the monitor!" Tomoko called over the intercom. She was not a Time Lord, but still sounded like she was in some pain.

On the monitor, things were suddenly completely different, the cities were now intact, ships were flying by, everything looked peaceful and calm. The Doctor and Rose looked at each other and shivered.

"Which Masha was assigned to this Loop?" he asked over the intercom.

"No one. This isn't a Masha loop," it was Adie who answered. "This is weapons testing."

"Bloody hell, that's no good," the Doctor muttered. "How long do you think this Loop went?" he mused aloud.

"Pretty long, because those bodies looked really old," Rose reminded him and he nodded.

"We know the length of reset to be one hundred years at least," Tomoko's voice came over the intercom.

"Yeah, that's bollocks," Koschei muttered. "Because its way too long for weapons testing. Something else must have been going on. Besides, a century would have been missed. You can steal a few weeks, but a full century? Someone would have noticed."

"So, what do you think it was?" Susan asked from the medi-bay, sounding shaken.

"It's been warped, this is an artificial Loop, not real time at all," Guinn agreed. "We built it from scratch to contain the Manifold."

"Right, so how long," the Doctor asked.

"A thousand years and the differential was eight months to an hour," he replied. "This was to monitor long term effects."

"And your conclusion?" the Doctor asked with a touch of irritation.

"That it was too damned dangerous to release," Guinn snapped back. "We were desperate, not suicidal!"

"Now what?" Rose asked.

"Now, we wait for them to attack." The Doctor's voice sounded bitter and sad.

"And what do we do during that time? We'll be targets too!" Adie sounded frightened.

"We get the TARDIS repaired and get out as fast as we can," the Doctor told Adie soothingly.

"Doctor, does the reset mean that the breach in the trans-Möbius barrier has been repaired?" Tomoko called again.

"Only partially. By giving them a thousand bloody years to nibble away, they'll have it down again in no time, no doubt faster this time, because they will have learned," the Doctor sighed out.

"Yes, wasn't my idea to give them this much time, by the way," Guinn grumbled over the intercom. "I wanted them utterly destroyed and not left around the place to get up to mischief."

"Incoming," Tomoko's voice was grim.

"Really learning to hate those things," Rose told her, unconsciously rubbing at her stomach, where she'd been injured.

"Doctor," Tomoko's voice was uncertain, "Is there any way to help the people in this loop?"

"If I had thought of one, Tomoko, I'd already be doing it," he replied, his face grim.

She was silent for a while.

"The bait we set out is not going to last through a war like this."

"No." He stood silently, watching the insects come screaming down onto the distant cities. "Koschei, Guinn, tell me the TARDIS is ready to get into the Vortex."

"This one, yes, but not Susan's," he informed him.

"Can Susan's be towed?" asked Adie timidly.

"Yes, let's get over there and you lot get moving," Koschei responded.

Koschei, Guinn, and Susan appeared a moment later, dressed in cold weather gear.

* * *

"Ready," Koschei told the Doctor, who looked at him with a worried expression.

"Be careful crossing over there. The skies are full of them," he cautioned.

"A lovely stroll through Dante's seventh level?" Susan suggested with an impish smile. "Not a problem."

She hugged the Doctor tightly and then the three of them stepped out into the freezing night, while above them, the sky sparked and flashed.

"Right, once they are inside the other TARDIS, it'll be time for us to get moving," the Doctor said in a strained voice. On the monitor, a city was going up in flames.

They made it, but only just. The city lasted barely the time it took for them to get from one TARDIS to the other.

"Strap yourselves in," Guinn told Koschei and Susan.

"There are no actual seat belts on a TARDIS, Guinn," Susan chuckled. "A dreadful oversight, to be sure."

Koschei and Susan took their places at the console and glanced at each other, before setting the TARDIS into neutral mode, to make it easier for the Doctor to tow them.

"Can you hear me?" Tomoko's voice came over the intercom. "We're about to take off, it may be a rough ride."

"Loud and clear," Koschei replied. "Wouldn't be the first time," he muttered.

* * *

"All ready on this side, Doctor," called Tomoko. "Communications established."

Adie allowed the other Time Lords to take their places first, then stood near a console.

The Doctor moved with economy and speed, Rose working with him, and they were soon shifting into the Vortex, dragging Susan's TARDIS behind them.

"Ugly, but functional," the Doctor sighed.

A wasp spotted them at the last second and swooped, but they were too quick for it. Once they were in the vortex, Adie breathed a sigh of relief.

Tomoko's voice came over the intercom.

"They're safe in the Vortex, so we can go after the other Mashas, now," she said.

"Not a problem for me," Rose assured them. "Anywhere away from those things is a good place to be."

"Doctor," came Tomoko's voice again, "Do we know where the other Mashas are exactly?"

"We have the Master's monitoring equipment, so yeah," he replied.

"Then lets get moving," she muttered, then clicked off.

* * *

Masha 57 spent several minutes re-tying the ends of the rope that bound the raft together. She spent most of her time here, drifting from island to island, making brief stops on land for supplies before setting out again.

Life really was much easier on the raft. Tall trees stretched up and laced together above her head, tendrils of lacey moss drifting down from them. Long limbed birds flapped and sang above her and playful monkeys hooted from the branches of the trees.

She was laying on her stomach, watching the lights far below her, when a wheezing noise made her look up. There, in the middle of the air, was a drifting balloon with a closed basket underneath. She wasn't sure where it came from, but the pilot must be insane. Already the fish below her were darting away to safety, as the movement in the depths alerted them.

A hatch in the side opened and a man was peering out, grinning madly at her. He was no one she had ever seen before and she was rather taken aback.

"There you are!" he called. "This is a rescue! Come aboard!"

"Are you mad?" she shouted back to him. "If the Tawdra see you…" she pointed at the water and he looked at her with bafflement, then his eyes went suddenly wide, as he started to shout a warning.

But, it was too late.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, Adie gave a sudden shriek of surprise, jerking her hands away from the console as she saw the scanner. She was a competent enough pilot, but extremely inexperienced, and didn't yet have much confidence at the controls.

The Tawdra was enormous. It breached out of the water as if the TARDIS had been dangling on a hook. It had an enormous mouth, filled with sharp teeth, which fitted quite nicely around the bottom of the basket. The pitted hide of the thing, an unholy cross between a whale and a piranha, was like the surface of the moon. It had tiny silver and black eyes that seemed filled with cruel menace to Adie's frightened gaze.

"Bugger!" the Doctor shouted, scrambling back from the door.

"Close the door!" Rose shouted and jumped for the controls.

"Move!" the Doctor cried, but Adie, startled by the creature's violent lunge, froze. Huge teeth snapped around the TARDIS and the vast bulk of it was weighty enough to pull the TARDIS right under the water.

"Oi! No chewing on the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouted. "I just fixed it!"

Pleased with its prize, the Tawdra swam off at once, the TARDIS still in its mouth, only to be rammed by another Tawdra. This made the first one drop its new treat; and while they fought over it, a third one took the opportunity to snatch it and lumber off in a new direction.

"Oops! I'm sorry!" Adie had been knocked into the nearby wall by all of this, but hastily made her way back to the console. She was blushing furiously, but already starting the de-materialization sequence.

"Is everyone all right?" the Doctor asked.

"Nothing but a bruise," Rose assured him.

"We're all right," Evie said softly.

"Could it eat us?" one of the others asked and the Doctor shook his head.

"We're safe as houses," he assured her. "Takes something a lot worse than that to chew up a TARDIS." Like, the Manifold, Adie thought to herself.

The victorious Tawdra was furious when its prize suddenly vanished, and promptly got into a fight with the other two.

* * *

Masha-57 was busy keeping afloat in the water. The waves kicked up by the Tawdra had easily swamped the little raft. She couldn't drown, but she couldn't try climbing back on board until things had calmed a little.

The floating balloon appeared back in the air and the mad fellow opened the hatch again.

"Let's try it again, shall we? This is a rescue! Come on, quickly!"

The Tawdra were fighting madly below, but she swam until he could reach her hand.

She climbed aboard, coughing up water, but very glad to see them.

"Is this your first rescue?" she teased him. "Because you may need some practice."

Adie blushed madly.

"You'll get better," the Doctor assured her, with a pat on the shoulder. "You just need more practice."

"Which is what you're about to get," Rose reminded her with a big grin. "So, that's all good then!"

* * *

Slowly the TARDIS filled up with Mashas, hopping from one Loop to another. It was underwater for one Loop, underground for a second, practically in a volcano for a third. The Doctor was navigating for Adie, with Rose doing the computations in her head as fast as she could.

The baffled, tired, hungry, and threadbare Mashas came in one by one and each had to be debriefed and sworn to not kill Guinn.

The Doctor looked up as the shouting in the next room grew rather heated.

"They're not all happy about this," Rose sighed.

"When all you've known for hundreds of years is this one time, this one place, it's harder to change than you might think," the Doctor murmured.

"Is that why you keep travelling, so you don't get stuck in a rut?" Rose teased and he shook his head.

"No, it's because there is just so much to see, more than anyone ever could in a trillion years and I hate to miss out on any of it," he replied, giving her a grin.

"Really?" London asked him. "There really is that much out there?"

"Oh yes, there really is." His eyes unfocused a bit as he smiled. "Millions of worlds, of races, planets made of diamond, seas made of ice, worlds where the trees talk and walk and worlds where nothing exists at all."

"Who made them all?" she wondered.

"An interesting question, but the answer is that they come from what came before them, which came from what came before that in a never ending infinite stream of existence."

Her face fell visibly.

"So, it's just a really big Loop?"

"London, you can go anywhere you like, to any part of the time-stream you want to, you can see it all, and most importantly, you can leave any time you want. The universe is infinite, it has no bounds on it and there are an infinite number of other universes nested inside of each other ad infinitum. It it's a Loop, it's so vast that you'll never come to the end of it," he explained.

She fished in her pocket.

"Even here?" She showed him an old and battered piece of paper. It was so woebegone it took several seconds to identify as an ancient postcard.

"Visit London," it said, with several attractive pictures of the city.

"Especially there," he told her.

"I grew up there," Rose told her with a smile. "That's my home."

"Really? Is there really a clock? And what's this picture of?" London started chattering at her immediately. Rose might have just committed herself for the next several hours, by the tone of her questions.

Rose laughed and answered her questions cheerfully as they continued through the Loops, gathering Mashas as they went.

* * *

The Doctor was giving piloting lessons to several of the clones, but paused when he saw Tomoko and gave her a look.

"Seen Adie lately?" he asked her. "She's been hiding somewhere."

"I can go and find her if you would like."

"I think she might need to talk to someone," he nodded.

Tomoko nodded and headed down the hall, leaving the Mashas to the Doctor.

She checked the TARDIS' registry and found Adie's signal in the HADS bay, working on the automatic defence systems. With that information in hand, Tomoko went to run her quarry to ground.

* * *

Adie was working quietly on the HADS systems. They were only running at partial capacity, and she didn't like it. They would need to be fully operational once they fought the Manifold. The Hostile Action Displacement System was damn useful when things got really bad and it looked like things could get really bad rather quickly.

Tomoko came in, picked up a spanner, and set herself across from Adie, pulling off the cover to the next panel and digging into the wiring. She had changed to a simple shirt, work pants, and boots.

"You ought to have told me," she said to Adie, who looked up at her, a smudge of dirt on her face and her hair coming loose from her ponytail. The overalls she'd thrown on over her clothes, to protect them, were filthy and singed in places.

She didn't have to ask for what.

"I didn't want anyone to know. And in all fairness, even the Doctor doesn't know how much risk there is. I was always meant to be a replacement for Susan, but Susan will be right there, and I gather that Rassilon's previous attempts failed too. The Arkytior may not appear at all. We might be worrying for nothing," she temporized, trying to hide her own fears under a pile of cheerful 'ifs'.

"And if we're not?" Tomoko asked flatly, her eyes boring into Adie's with implacable resolve. She was silent for a while as she tried to think of something to say.

"I can't not do it, Tomoko. I think of all those people who stand to die and I can't not go. I'm scared out of my mind, but I am going out there," she finally told her, letting go of her protective lies.

"Then we need a plan B. I am going to take care of the Mashas, and you'll help me, but…," she trailed off and Adie sighed. It wasn't as if the thought hadn't already occurred to her. She'd been doing little but worrying about the Mashas for a century now, after all.

"But, given the circumstances, we shouldn't leave it to chance. I agree," Adie replied, leaving all of that unspoken.

Tomoko nodded, obviously hearing it all anyway, and they sat down and began to talk in earnest.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21 - Love and Justice

The Doctor checked the scanner again with a frown.

"That whole area is clear of bugs now," he pointed out and Diana-37 nodded. "We can bring both TARDIS out of the Vortex now and finish the repairs."

"Good. Should we set down right next to each other," Jake asked, looking at Diana.

"They've been good so far, but I don't want to push them too hard." She considered. "We'll keep the promise. I just don't want them to feel like we're flaunting him under their noses, either, let's not risk setting them off. It's not like we all don't realize that we can't kill him and still have the Revolution."

"Yes, because that sort of thing stains you," the Doctor murmured. "I've seen it all throughout history. A revolution starts, people have ideals, goals, dreams, and then it ends with blood, guillotines, and terror. They only way it works really, is if you don't go the path of violence." He shrugged.

"That doesn't mean he is off the hook," Diana-37 frowned at him. "You saw the lab. Sooner or later we are going to want something like… justice. Not a lynching, but… something."

"Really? Justice? He was ripped apart as a child by an egomaniacal bastard and put back together wrong? You want to punish him for that?" the Doctor asked, his eyes hard and angry. "You really want justice, then make friends with him, take care of him, show him the compassion and caring that he should have gotten all this time! Because anything else isn't 'justice' it's just revenge!"

"I think that they need answers, Doctor, closure of some sort. To feel like he is sorry and that they've been heard," Jake interrupted. "It's not like they want to chop bits off of him, well, maybe Neveah does, but most of them are just bewildered. He made them, tossed them into hell, and they don't understand why. They need to understand their past and make peace with it, before they can move forward."

"That's the three semesters of psych talking isn't it?" the Doctor snarked.

"Doesn't mean I'm wrong," Jake retorted.

"He made us and hated us. What does that even mean? Susan said he should have been our father. Aren't fathers supposed to love their daughters?" She paused. "I'm not even sure I know what justice means exactly, I don't think I have worked it all out yet. But I'm not sure this can last like this. I mean, yeah, the arrangements work for right now, and yeah, I see why we made them, but eventually something else will have to happen. I just… don't know what that is."

"Yes, I can see that," the Doctor sighed. "But, he made you because Rassilon ordered him to, the man who got Susan killed, ordered him to use the girl who let Susan down, to replace Susan. Can you possibly grasp how awful that must have been for him? Of course he hated you. Not one of you was ever going to be Susan." He turned his head back to the controls and re-materialized them on the ground.

"Are you saying he was right, then?"

"No, I'm saying that there was no right thing to do, except not to have started the project in the first place, but I'm selfish enough to be glad he did, because I've grown rather fond of you all," he sighed and looked up at her sadly.

"Well, I won't say I don't like being alive," Masha-37's hand found Jake's and held it quietly. "But I don't like being a bomb. I don't want to be a weapon. I want to be something else."

"Yes, we're working on that, Tomoko-6 and I," he murmured. "But anyway, we're here."

* * *

In Susan's TARDIS, the lovely Art Nouveau interior was scared and charred, the console was patched and had parts and broken pieces scattered around. Under the console, Guinn's legs stuck out, while nearby Koschei and K-9 were trying to repair and calibrate the Secondary Control Console's 2LO Energy Distributor Circuit.

Susan stood quietly by, her hand on the controls, waiting for word.

Koschei had changed into jeans and a black t-shirt, while Susan had thrown on slacks, her boots, and a green blouse. The legs sticking out from under the console were now clad in black trousers, though they were already growing stained and dirty from the work.

"Try it again," Guinn called to Susan, from under the console.

"Yes, love," Susan replied and flipped a switch that induced a shower of sparks.

"Bugger," Guinn swore and she turned it off again.

"Is that thing repaired yet, Koschei?" he asked next.

"Yes, finally," he grumbled, as K-9 welded the last piece together under his direction. "Good dog," he told him with a pat on his head.

"Affirmative Koschei," the dog replied with a wag of its tail.

"Got to get this damned thing flying," grumbled Guinn. "Okay, try it again, Susan!"

She flipped the switch again and there was a grinding noise. The lights came on, buttons flickered and then lit. Susan's TARDIS was back in business.

"That works," Koschei agreed and closed up the panel.

"Indeed it does," Guinn agreed.

"My brilliant men!" Susan chuckled, beaming at Koschei.

Guinn crawled out from under the console and stood up between her arms and the console frame. He kissed her hard, the intoxicating combination of her presence and finally having power lighting a fire in him. She twined around him, holding him tightly and kissing him back with her whole attention focused on him for a moment. Koschei wiped his hands on a cloth, his eyes unreadable as he watched.

"Come on, let's go kill some bugs, love," she groaned. "Before you distract me." She evaded his hands and slipped away from the console, though her face showed her reluctance to do so. "Your reward for a successful kill is more later," she promised the two of them and Koschei smiled at that.

"Hmm, I think I'll take more later, regardless," Guinn told her. "Assuming you haven't changed your mind." Koschei rolled his eyes at that.

"As if," he muttered.

"Still have those neck ties?" Susan replied, looking up at Guinn through the curtain of her hair, eyes dark with promise and he pulled her against him, kissing her softly.

"Yes, but I'll only use them on you, if you ask very nicely," he whispered in her ear and she shivered, her arms slipping around his neck and drawing him down into another kiss.

"I promise to be very good," she whispered, once she'd finished driving him mad.

"Actually, I like it much better when you're naughty," he replied, loving the hot burn in her as she smirked up at him.

"Yes, Master," she replied and now it was his turn to shiver.

"Hey, my turn!" Koschei teased and Susan stepped into his arms for a kiss as well. "So, you're heading back to the other TARDIS soon?" he asked Guinn, his brows drawn down as he asked.

"Besides the controls for the Lens, all the real weapons systems are in my TARDIS," he pointed out. "None of which are any good against a threat like this. Even so, you two do realize that you're completely unarmed in this ship?"

"I know, but arming her hasn't been a top priority," Koschei sighed.

"I don't like the idea of you being on the other TARDIS though, without us there, what if you get in trouble?" Susan asked, looking at him with a worried expression.

"There's no other alternative, there's no hope of getting the Lens controls moved in the amount of time that we have." He smirked at her. "Besides, when was the last time I got myself into trouble with a giant cosmic super-weapon? I'm sure it's been at least a week." Koschei winced at that and shot Susan a somewhat guilty glance.

"At least a week," he agreed.

"Exactly what I'm talking about," she groused and cuddled against Koschei with a sigh. Guinn watched as their energy coiled around each other, the way that they seemed to melt together and fought his feelings of longing and jealousy. That could have been him, if he hadn't mucked everything up.

"Something has occurred to me," Koschei said with a blink. "You haven't even eaten, have you?" he asked and Susan looked up at him, chagrined.

This hadn't occurred to Guinn. None of them had eaten, they had all been so busy repairing the TARDIS. He'd promised to help look out for Susan and he was already failing at it. He felt the stirrings of shame.

"No," she said simply. "There was so much to do!" she protested and Koschei looked at her and kissed her again.

"Go get something to eat," he suggested "Bring us some sandwiches and tea, please, once you've eaten?" She nodded her agreement.

"Croissants?" she teased and both of them nodded at the same moment, which made her laugh as she headed out to get food for them all.

"What systems are still down?" Koschei asked.

"The Mean Free Path Tracker is the last thing needing repair at this point," Guinn replied.

"Good, then we should get moving on that. Is that really the last thing" he asked, a bit surprised that they'd completed so much work already.

"Yes and we can't begin our attack run until that's fixed," Guinn pointed out. "Susan will have to be with you, no matter how the road turns. I'll assume that you two have a plan to deal with the Arkytior?"

"What do you mean 'how the road turns'? Of course we have a plan, now sit down! I am getting a crick in my neck looking up at me!" he grumbled and Guinn frowned, but sat down in one of the green velvet wing chairs.

"Is your plan going to be to let you two handle Her, in order to protect Adie?" Guinn asked with a grimace and Koschei gave him a sour look.

"You know yourself far too well," he groused.

"Fine, you two deal with the Arkytior, I'll take care of everything else," Guinn replied. "You keep her safe for me."

"I know that look on your face, by the way, I've seen it the mirror often enough. So stop it right now, she's not like that and you know it. You're not just a spare me, you know! When Susan says 'forever' she means it, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She's already got a bureau picked out for you." Koschei informed his other self with a rueful smile. "Once you're caught, my friend, there is no escaping her orbit and you quickly forget why you ever wanted to." He admitted the last part with a snort.

Guinn was surprised. He hadn't been thinking of Susan at all, just then, but rather the Arkytior: now Koschei's words drew him back to her.

"A bureau?" he said blankly.

"Yes, and she's thinking about where to put an addition to the workshop for you."

Guinn blinked. Three times.

"I.. hadn't thought ahead that far." He hadn't pictured himself in the bedroom as a permanent resident: merely as an occasional roll-in-the-hay guest.

"This is Susan we're talking about. She doesn't do 'casual'," he pointed out and Guinn wanted to yell at him. He'd had six and a half days with Miranda and several weeks with the shattered remnants of Susan. He didn't know her the way that Koschei obviously did. Susan had told him that one day he'd know her inside and out and it was obvious that Koschei did know her that well. It was hard not to feel jealous of that. Still, he'd ruined his own future all by himself, so no reason to punish Koschei for succeeding.

"None of which is going to matter, if we don't survive the day," he reminded Koschei, who snorted.

"So, let's see what we can do to ensure our mutual survival," he agreed.

"Can you talk her back once the Arkytior shows up?" The Master was feeling restless and uneasy, as though there was still something he was missing here.

"Yes, I think so," Koschei asked, frowning.

"We fire the Lens, that takes care of the bug, but it triggers the Arkytior. There's no anchor for her and that girl will fry without one. That leaves the Arkytior in the area. It will certainly latch onto Susan, so you will have to bring her back. Regardless, once we fire the lens, you and Susan will be occupied; from there it's a matter of handling the Nanites and the Manifold, I'll deal with that. The Doctor and Rose will help me with that, I suppose."

"How does she put up with me?" Koschei grumbled looking at Guinn as though he was rather slow.

Guinn frowned, double-checking his plan for holes, and found none.

"I take it you have a better plan in mind?" he snarked, crossing his arms.

"Susan and I are going to take her into gestalt with us and shield her." Koschei's voice was granite hard. "We'll intercept the Arkytior and keep her occupied."

"Which still puts the three of you out of the picture at that point," Guinn reminded him with a frown, still not seeing how that changed things.

"You too, though, because you're bound to us," Koschei pointed out. "We will have to have the Doctor and Rose running what they can. Oh I wish Dar was here," he groaned and scrubbed his face. "We need another Time Lord in this TARDIS to help us out."

Koschei grabbed a laser spanner and cracked the panel on the Mean Free Path Tracker circuits. Guinn rose and joined him at that, there was too much to do and not much time. He handed Koschei a circuit tester without thinking about it and thought hard.

"So, Rose and the Doctor take care of the Manifold," Guinn muttered.

"Along with Jake and the Mashas," Koschei reminded him.

"Of course," he agreed.

"How are you doing?" Koschei asked and Guinn opened his mouth to lie and then snapped it shut again.

"Awful," Guinn replied and looked away. He'd been mad, but more than that, he'd been dead inside, the very centre of his existence taken from him. "What I did to the Mashas... it was worse than most of the rest of the things I've done. Not because I didn't do even more terrible things to other people, other worlds, but because I didn't even do it because I wanted to. I took no benefit from it. It was just something to do to keep from going mad. I wasn't... myself." It was as close as he could come to saying it.

"Not surprising. When Susan and I were trapped in separate universes and I thought I'd left her to die on Gallifrey, I went utterly mad. Lost it completely." He shuddered. "Can't blame you in the slightest for not being in top form."

Guinn nodded, thinking of that terrible day when he had killed Susan, when she had died in his arms, and his shoulders hunched. For an instant, the light drained from his aura, leaving it blank and dead looking. But then he shook his head and thrust the memory away. It was too painful, so he tried to think of it as seldom as possible. Without another word he went to the console and began adjusting dials.

"Careful. She'll see that," Koschei murmured gently and rested a hand on his shoulder in sympathy.

"Yes, I'll have to work on better shielding when I get a moment," he muttered

"I'll show you how to shunt that stuff to one side," he replied. "It's just because I don't like upsetting her and when I get into one of my funks, she gets that hurt feeling in her chest and it makes me cringe and feel horrible," he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't think I should like to experience that," Guinn said ruefully.

"I know this is all a huge change for you. After everything that has happened, you must be reeling. You're going to need some time to adjust to it all. When it gets to be too much, we can escape the smothering familial affection occasionally by hiding on New San Martine, I found the same house in this universe and bought it for Susan as an anniversary gift last year."

"Thoughtful of you," Guinn said quietly, the memories of that time, that place, they still haunted his dreams.

"Selfish, you mean. A place I can have her all to myself for a few days, without Theta walking into the bedroom without knocking!" Koschei complained his blue eyes filled with remembered annoyance. "Still, it made her happy, which is all that matters."

"Yes," Guinn agreed. He could see already how happy that had made her. She must have treasured her time with him there. He silently vowed never to return; some other house could be located when, or if, the three of them wanted to be together. Susan would still want alone time strictly with Koschei, and Koschei clearly needed it. "That's all that matters."

"It is," Koschei agreed and looked up at him with an unreadable look. "I'd do anything for her, even not do things I want to."

"As evidenced by the fact that you haven't shot me. For which I thank you." he said and Koschei barked a laugh.

"Nor have you shot me, thank you, which proves that you feel the same way. Not surprising, we're the same in many ways. Even if you're freakishly tall," he teased. "You and I, we just need to take care of her, keep her safe, that's what will keep us friends, you know. Because anyone that loves her as much as I do, is someone I like already," he chuckled.

Guinn looked at his other self in surprise. It occurred to him that he

already rather liked Koschei as well. It was soothing, talking to someone who understood completely, who'd gone through the same hell as he had and had the same pole star drawing him along.

"I… could see that," he mused. "Yes, I am in agreement."

"Well, we do think alike," Koschei pointed out. "You kept all your tools in the same order in your workshop, I found everything I needed, exactly where I always keep it."

"I haven't had a chance to look at yours," he admitted. "Too busy repairing the ship."

"Well, we have time now, I just got a new ion lathe, haven't even had a chance to use it yet," he told him.

"I don't… make things any more," he said and his voice was awkward. He didn't know how to express what he was feeling, the sudden extreme reaction he felt to the very idea of building something, designing something. His hands were shaking at the thought and his stomach was churning.

Koschei stopped and turned, looking at him for a long time. There was a deep understanding in his eyes and he nodded.

"I know. I felt that way too. I never wanted to use the same tools, the same hands again, I was afraid of what my mind would churn up. It terrified me. I had dreams where I'd have built something and it would have killed Susan, or the Doctor, and I'd wake up screaming," he told him and then took a breath.

"Then the Sycorax attacked Earth. The planet had no defences and I just sat down and started working, the ideas just pouring out of me. Everyone was thrilled with them and I did something good. I used my skills to help. I realized that not helping was as bad as hurting them." He stopped, flushed and shrugged. "So, there's that." he muttered and headed to his workshop, not looking to see if Guinn was following or not.

Guinn checked the controls, then followed with a sigh.

"Well, that means that the Earth has you, doesn't it?" He shook his head. "At the moment I have seventy-four angry clones after my head, and eventually we are going to have to try and pull…" He stopped and hastily rearranged what he had been about to say, "... Susan back from the Arkytior. I don't make things. You lathe, and I'll watch."

"Fine, you can hand me things," he muttered. "I'm too tired to argue about it."

Guinn nodded and followed him into the workshop. He found that suddenly, he was too tired to argue either.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22 - Dangerous Liasons

Guinn's TARDIS was becoming quite crowded, but the Doctor enjoyed it immensely. Surrounded by curious, excited people, all of whom wanted to hear all about him, about Gallifrey, it was delightful. Rose was grinning and laughing, telling them stories about their many adventures and the Mashas were a great audience.

"Where's Koschei?" Zoi-29 asked suddenly, as she came striding into the console room.

"Hm? Oh, he went over to the other TARDIS to help them with repairs and to make sure Susan was taking care of herself," Rose explained and the Mashas all fell silent.

"He's with the Master?" Evie-44 asked fearfully and Rose nodded.

"Alone?" Kimberly-21 asked in tones both nervous and breathless.

"Yes," Rose replied, in a matter of fact tone, and was baffled by the frightened looks that the Mashas exchanged.

"Will he be okay?" Tamara-61 asked, her face filled with worry.

"Of course, why wouldn't he be?" she asked, perplexed.

"Well, it's the Master," Evie-44 nearly whispered, like she was talking about a demon out of hell.

"What if he tries to kill Koschei?" Kimberly-21 demanded, her bright yellow skirt swirling around her ankles as she took a step forward.

"If he does try, Susan will have him arse over tea kettle before you can say 'Jack Robinson'," Rose snorted. "She won't put up with that sort of nonsense."

The Mashas all looked at each other in bewildered surprise.

"Is she really that dangerous?" Tamara-6 asked softly and Rose tried not to laugh at the earnest expressions that they all wore.

"My dears," the Doctor interrupted with a solemn face. "My grand-daughter once told Rassilon, to his face, to get stuffed. There is no one more dangerous than she is, not even me."

They all looked at each other nodded and left the room. Rose waited a moment later before she started giggling.

"No one more dangerous!" she chortled and shook her head. "That was a good one." The Doctor however cocked his head and looked at her with a serious expression.

"My darling Rose, what makes you think I was joking?" he asked and went back to work on the TARDIS while Rose stared at him, dumbfounded, not sure if he were serious or not.

The Doctor had been left alone in the TARDIS console room. The Mashas were exploring the ship, with Rose and Adie as tour guides. Adie because she knew the ship and Rose because Adie was too shy to go alone. He looked around at the dim lighting and black roundels and sighed. The place was grim, gloomy, and dreadful.

He decided to meddle a bit.

First, he changed the desktop, shifting the colour scheme to a pleasant peach and gold. It was one of the standard desktops, since apparently the Master had never bothered to design a custom one, or upload anything other than the basic pack. He shook his head at that. Aesthetics mattered, he'd tried to explain that many times, but the drumbeat must have drowned him out.

His mind turned to Adie and Susan. After the firing of the Lens, Adie was going to be falling apart, if he couldn't find a way to keep her together. A hundred years alone, just to protect the clones, he mused. That was the key, he decided.

"Right," he muttered. "Let's give her something to be responsible for." He quietly removed Guinn's biodata from the circuits and replaced them with Adie's. It was her TARDIS now. He made himself another primary pilot, and as an afterthought added Rose as a full co-pilot as well.

Next, he purged all weapons systems that contravened the Shadow Proclamation's Conventions on Warfare. Then, he quietly reconfigured her. Seventy-six bedrooms, plenty of bathrooms, several more kitchens, everything he thought might make the Mashas a good home, at least until they decided on what they wanted to do with themselves. He set all these things on the outer rings, making sure that the central core was undisturbed. It wouldn't do for anyone to figure it out too soon, after all.

"This is better for Susan too," he sighed. He knew his old friend. Despite all protests to the contrary, Guinn and Koschei were both all too prone to sacrifice their lives for others and he wasn't having that. Susan had cried enough over the centuries; it was time for her to be happy now.

"Yes, much better," the Doctor murmured.

"What is?" Rose asked, as she walked in.

"I've changed the desktop and I've repaired one of the navigation systems," he told her.

"I noticed! Much better, really, I like the colours," she agreed and then her eyes fell on the controls he was working on. He quickly wiped the screen and eyed her appreciatively.

"My, that outfit suits you!" he told her. It was something she'd found in the wardrobe, a Chinese sheath dress in blue and silver that clung to every curve.

"Doctor? What are you up to? Rose asked suspiciously.

"I'm merely flirting with a beautiful woman," he told her, leaning in for a kiss. She laughed and kissed him back with a warm happy smile. Having successfully derailed her, he escorted her towards the kitchen. "Can I buy you dinner?"

"Sounds delightful," she agreed.

Behind them, the TARDIS carried out his orders, cheerfully reconfiguring herself to suit her new purpose.

"I can bring them," Tomoko told Adie.

"No, it's too many for one person to carry. I'll be all right."

"I could punch him in the nose when we get there," Tomoko's lips rose in a half-smirk and it was clear that she was joking.

"I've heard that before," Adie said, "Let's just bring the parts."

They got them wrestled into the bins and closed the lids. On its anti-grav sled, the bins weren't hard to float across the snow to Susan's hospital TARDIS, though it was an awkward load and needed to be manoeuvred rather carefully, so that they didn't tip over.

Guinn was working in the console room. Koschei and he had finished with the first repair and Koschei had gone down to engineering to get started on the next one. Guinn had one of the panels entirely dismantled. He was sitting on the floor as they came in, grease smudged and with his hair rather tangled and he looked up at them as they came in.

Tomoko looked at Adie, who smiled back at her.

"I'll be all right," she assured the other girl.

"All right," said Tomoko, somewhat dubiously, "I'll deliver the other bin to Koschei… back in a minute," she said, and disappeared down a corridor.

"I brought the parts," Adie said shyly.

"Yes... uh... thank you," came the reply. Guinn was eyeing the corridor down which Tomoko had disappeared, like he was expecting a hand grenade to come bouncing back towards him.

"She's not going to hurt you, you know."

"Not until all this is over," he agreed. "Then I suspect things will... change, in that area."

"Change? Change how?"

"A lynching perhaps? No, quaint, but ineffectual. She's too competent for it to be anything less than permanent and complete," he told her, his voice calm, but his eyes rather sad.

"She's not going to kill you. And she's not going to let the others kill you."

"So, you suspect something more like long-term incarceration and the occasional thumbscrew?" he asked, with a small smile.

She scowled.

"Is that really what you think will happen?"

"I have had indications, from the looks some of them have given me and the muttered insults hurled in my direction, that I am not dearly loved by them," he explained. "One girl in particular has made the point, rather forcefully, that my existence shall become hellish and miserable once the truce is no longer in force. She came all the way over here, merely to express that to me. She seemed quite sincere." He shrugged. "They have good reason for their feelings, you know. I can hardly blame them. I feel much the same way about myself as they do, after all."

"But I notice you aren't reaching for the nearest sandgun."

"The Manifold are still out there and I need every last one of them in order to fire the Lens. My choice is: Save myself at the expense of everyone else, probably dying later anyway, when the Manifold get loose and eat the universe, or die and allow everyone else to survive." He eyed her with a thoughtful expression. "I already know which way you have chosen, Adie. So, you must see the point of it."

"Yes," her voice was solemn. "I think I have got my affairs set in order at this point. But I… think you are going to live."

"The maths do not favour that outcome," he informed her and then shrugged again.

"It's not as though it matters much in my case, Adie. I have another ready to step into my shoes, after all. I am hardly unique, or particularly valuable." Guinn pulled a circuit board closer, peering at the damage. "Unlike you."

"You are unique, you know and Susan needs you. Besides, I'm just Rassilon's pet, remember?"

He growled and got to his feet to pace across the room.

"I remember quite clearly," he snarled. "That bastard was always gloating over you, the filthy way he pawed you, all those nasty little comments about how one day 'you'd be his'." He glanced at her apologetically. "Sorry, I know that none of that could have been pleasant for you."

Adie was silent for a long time.

"I got to where I didn't mind him so much," she mused to the bin. "It was as close as I ever came to affection. Eventually, I almost got to where I almost looked forward to it, in a… kind of weird way. From time to time I almost miss him. He used to stroke my hair..." Her eyes seemed far away.

"He must have been mucking about with your brain, then," Guinn told her, his gaze sharpening abruptly. "I remember at the start that you would cringe away from him, try to hide behind me, or one of the other engineers. That's how you really feel about him. He was the 900 pound gorilla when it came to psychic abilities, too powerful to be very subtle, but even he could be patient and do his rewiring over time, if he had to." He paused for a long while. "Try to remember how much you hate him, how much he repelled you, all the people he killed, and the plans he made to preserve himself at the expense of everyone else. Every time you think you miss him, think of him torturing Susan, okay?"

Adie's face darkened suddenly. "Rassilon may have tortured Susan, but he never tortured me. The Seers did that. He never tortured me on the station. That was your job, when you weren't… I don't know… ignoring me or just… hating me because Susan died. The engineers didn't hate me, but most of them were too terrified to try and interact with me. Rassilon was… I knew what he was, I did, I still do. But I was useful to him in some way, I suppose, and he was never cruel to me. It was close enough."

"He stroked your head like you were a pet, an animal, he talked over you like you didn't exist, he treated you like an object, just a thing he owned, it was revolting. I might have been mad, but at least I was honest with you. I never lied, never did anything that I said I wouldn't. I hated everyone, by the way, not just you, but I never raped your mind the way he did, I stayed out of your head. I let you have your own mind, something that he obviously did not," he grumbled, his brows drawn down and his lips twisted. "You're a person, Adie, not a thing, not an object, you have an intrinsic right to exist and find your own way. He would never have allowed you that. He would have crushed your mind completely and used you as a gun to be aimed at his enemies."

"Oh, I know that. I always knew it. I remember how many people he killed. I do remember how desperately he wanted to save himself. At the time, my options were limited, and the idea of being crushed didn't seem so terrible. Now I think I… just sort of pity him, I suppose."

"You might want Susan to peer about inside your head at some point," he suggested somewhat reluctantly. "I know you don't want me in there, but it might be wise to have someone in to look, make sure nothing got left behind, as it were."

"No!" she said, startled. "No, I… no. Just… no."

"Very well," he agreed. "It was only me being paranoid, not to worry," he soothed, but she didn't reply at once.

"Yes," she said, quite firmly, as if trying to convince herself that this was correct. "You're right… you usually are, you know."

"If only that were true," he laughed. "Though, in this instance, I probably am."

"I shouldn't let my fears get the better of me like that."

"Fears aren't always a bad thing, Adie, they slow you down, make you think and take precautions. If you don't let them paralyse you, fears can save your life." He stopped and flushed, turning back to his repairs. "Sorry. You hardly need me lecturing you."

"It's all right. When one is trying to learn how to be brave, it helps to talk to someone who already is."

He gave a bark of laughter.

"Let me tell you a secret, Adie. Everyone is afraid, all the time. All courage is, is doing what needs to be done, even when you're scared witless. There's no one out there who is naturally fearless, unless he's an utter fool." He slotted the repaired board back into place with a snap and nodded his satisfaction as the lights and dials came back online again.

"Everyone just… looks so brave. I haven't even got the hang of looking brave yet, I don't have a brave face."

"No such thing. That's just the immobility of fear matched with the determination to keep buggering on, my dear," he teased.

She smiled at him.

"Thanks."

"That's what I'm here for," he told her wryly. "Agony Aunt, butler, and general handyman."

Adie giggled. It was the first time she had done so and it made her sound much younger.

"Now, here comes my future executioner to protect you from me, so, off you go, then," he told her and scurried from the room as Tomoko came in.

"What the hell!" She called after him, and then scowled at Adie. "Didn't you tell him that was not the plan?"

"Yes, but he didn't believe me."

"Well maybe he will believe Susan, because I told her it was not the plan."

Once she'd put away the grav-sled, Tomoko sought out the Doctor. Things were a bit insane and she knew that the Time Lords were all working hard, but she needed his input.

"Doctor?" She asked rather shyly. "I know you have heard this a thousand times today, but can I ask you something?"

"I never get tired of helping," he assured her, though she was fairly sure it was a lie, as he looked rather weary.

"I've been thinking about the future. Seventy-four Mashas and I have no idea what to do with them when this is all over. I don't suppose you have any ideas where we could live? Know of any nice planets, or spare asteroids, or empty space stations, or something?"

"Well, what are you looking for? Do you want to move in somewhere developed, or do you all want a place of your own?" he asked and she rolled that thought around in her brain for a bit.

"Could you give me a recommendation for each of those scenarios?"

"Certainly. There are millions of planets in the Galaxy, many of them with essentially humanoid inhabitants, where you could emigrate, find work, buy homes, etc., I could help out there, if you need it. The thing about choice, Tomoko, is that you have to know what your options are before you can make a good decision. That requires education, a place of safety where you can think, and the support of people who encourage your dreams. I've done a bit of rearranging of this TARDIS, you see. I've set up some educational modules for you, then I put in art, music, dance, and craft rooms for your creative side to get nurtured, gardens, bedrooms, gyms, swimming pools, everything I can think of that you might need to get you all started. I've even activated a couple of therapy rooms for you. I hope that will be enough for now. Adie can always shift things to suit you all as you go on, of course. But still, not bad for a start, eh?" he told her, finally coming to a stopping point and looking at Tomoko with the pleased smile of a good dog awaiting praise for his cleverness.

"That's all… wonderful," she beamed at him and sat down across from him. "You are going to give the TARDIS to Adie then? I was going to suggest it. She certainly deserves it, and it would annoy the hell out of Guinn, I think."

"That's all sorted, Tomoko," the Doctor told her with an airy wave. "I've already set Adie as the primary operator. She's all synced in and everything. Her bio-data was already logged, so it was really quite simple. I was hoping she would come in here, because once the bond starts up between them it might be a bit startling for her. She's a Time Lord, so the Rassilon Imprimatur is set and everything is quiet fine." He smiled at her, obviously quite pleased with himself. "Guinn will be furious, but this way he can't get all stupidly noble and run out on Susan either. It's a win-win for everyone!"

Tomoko-6 wasn't sure that Guinn would see it that way, but just then, they had other things to worry about.

"That's good," Tomoko agreed. "But long term we're going to need something more than a TARDIS, you know," she mused.

"Yes, which brings me back to the original question. Did you want something built, or a pristine world to start on?" he asked again.

"Pristine, at least at first I think. Not all of us are ready yet to be let loose on a civilized world. I'm not sure we'd be safe, for them, not us. We were created to survive in hostile environments, to be able to beat up on Daleks, and we're good at that. Could Neveah hold down a job somewhere?" she asked. "I don't know. She loses her temper and punches walls. That's fine here with us, but not so fine other places," she sighed and he nodded.

"You sound like you've been thinking about this for a while."

"I have."

"So, then I would suggest killing two birds with one stone," he told her and she found herself smiling. "There are two planets in Gallifrey's system that can support life, you see. Gallifrey and Karn. Karn is where the TARDIS corals are from, they grow underground, and they are incredibly precious and valuable."

"Okay?"

"The thing is, we're all the way away from Karn and they are there unprotected. They're sentient beings, Tomoko, magnificent, beautiful, and unable to defend themselves. I have made certain that all the TARDIS corals we're using for our ships are volunteers, they are all ones that want to fly, but not everyone is as moral as I am."

"So, if you put a colony of indestructible super clones there to protect them, then we'd have a planet to live on and they would have guardians," she mused.

"Karn used to be guarded by a Sisterhood and it can be again," he told her with a grin.

"I like that, I'll talk to the others about that. Which reminds me, I talked to Adie for a while. I think she's shy about being seen by the others. I don't think she will come out properly until we're ready to launch," she mused.

"That's no good, you lot are her sisters, you're family. She needs to come to terms with you all, stop feeling so guilty... Well, I don't suppose I'm one to talk about that, eh?" he chuckled.

She thought about it.

"I don't even necessarily think it is guilt, well not all of it. I think part of it is that… well.. .there are an awful lot of us here right now, and I think she gets nervous around big crowds of people."

"She was locked up in the Tower from age eight and then locked up in the Project for the rest of her life, not surprising then that she hasn't much experience in large groups," he sighed. "When was she ever in one before?"

"TARDIS corals," Tomoko mused. "Tell me about them?"

"Well, they are the heart of every TARDIS, fully sentient beings that we befriended long ago. They exist in eleven dimensions."

"I see. You think they would agree to guardians?" she mused.

"Oh yes, I do," he told her with a grin.

"The planet is suitable for human habitation? It has atmosphere, water, fertile soil, that sort of thing?"

"It's a paradise, Tomoko. From the verdant forests in the north, to the tropical beaches at the equator, it's magnificent," he assured her, sounding a bit like a travelogue, his eyes twinkling.

"It sounds ideal. I'll talk to the others about that. Which reminds me, I talked to Adie for a while." She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "She's trying to be brave about it, but she's absolutely petrified. What are her chances? Truthfully?"

"For what? Survival? Very high. The point was to keep her alive as Rassilon's bondmate, after all. If she died, there would be no great power for him," the Doctor grumbled.

She sat down nearby him. Her eyes seemed especially bright.

"What happens to a bond if there is no recipient?"

"It fails... or at least, it doesn't connect." The Doctor frowned. "I'm not sure, really. This has never happened before. The way a bond works normally is that two people meet, fall in love, and build a bond. In the case of destined bond mates... well, they're so rare, that it's not as though anyone has been able to really study it."

Tomoko considered this for some time.

"Do you have a guess? A hunch? Anything? Adie falls within my area of responsibility. I want to… I don't know, try to take care of her or at least try to prevent her from being hurt."

"One of two things will happen, either the bond will fail entirely, having nothing to latch onto, or it will find something to latch onto and then it will... fail. If that happens, then we might have a problem."

"I'm… not following." Tomoko looked acutely embarrassed.

"Right. You know how Guinn was when Susan died,? Well, that was because his bond with Susan failed. She died. She died and he did too in every essential way."

"You think… she'll become like him?" Tomoko sounded alarmed.

"No, not like him, she'll grieve in her own way, but she'll be half dead inside," the Doctor sighed.

"Noted," she said slowly. "Rassilon must have been a bloody bastard."

"I could tell you stories," the Doctor muttered darkly.

Tomoko templed her fingers and thought hard. Her eyes burned. It was possible to feel the waves of heat emanating from her, but at last she shook her head.

"I just don't see any way out of using the Lens." She chewed her lip. "You're better at maths than I am, isn't this the point where you brilliantly tell me I forgot to carry the two, pull a plan out of your arse, and we go off and do something completely random?"

"I do have three other plans, but none of them have the same odds for success," he admitted.

"I was afraid you were going to say that," Tomoko sighed. "All right, how can I help? Or… can I help at this point?"

"I don't really know. Susan, Koschei, and Guinn, are working on getting their bits done. You and the rest of the Mashas will be jetting about in your suits, shooting anything that gets too close to us, and Susan and Koschei will be protecting Adie. Can you think of anything we're forgetting?"

"I've assigned Jake to Adie. He's going to escort her in, guard her while the Lens is powering up, and he is also going to have to get her out. I'll be sure to tell him that she may go into gestalt. If this Arkytior thing actually shows up…" She paused. "I'm thinking maybe we let Susan deal with it and we basically hide?"

"An excellent plan," he chuckled. "How is Adie dealing with all this?"

"She's terrified, but she knows we have inhabited planets on the line," she mused.

"I imagine that she is frightened, it's a bit of an undertaking, after all."

"True." Tomoko looked up as the console buzzed. "Manifold is on the move," she murmured.

"Yes, looks like we've run out of time," he said and hit the alarm.

"Everyone, get in position, we're doing this now!" he shouted over the intercom.

Tonoko grabbed her helmet.

"See if you can raise the other TARDIS, tell them to get their arses in gear," she said. "I'll get everyone ready for the switch."

"Susan! It's on the move! Are you ready to swap TARDIS?" he was already asking her image on the screen, almost before Tomoko has stopped speaking.

"Yes, Grandfather, we're ready," she replied, her face supernally calm. "Send the Mashas over here and Guinn is already on his way. Don't worry about Adie, we'll keep her safe, all right?"

"Susan, you two will be careful, right?"

"Oh Grandfather, you're a bit late with that," she replied with an eyebrow arching up in a menacing manner. The Doctor nodded, his face grim suddenly.

"Be careful and take care of each other," he murmured and she nodded and cut the connection. "Right, get Adie up here quickly, it's time to go."

Tomoko spoke briefly into her headset, which she already had in her ear, and nodded.

"She's on her way."

A moment later Adie came into the room. She was wearing a suit like Tomoko's. Her face was pale, but she smiled at the Doctor.

"You rang, Doctor?" Tomoko stepped aside to allow Adie more space, but did not leave the room. Both girls looked at him expectantly.

"Right." he looked at Adie silently for a long moment. "Susan and Koschei are determined to protect you. I can't argue with their logic, but I think you need to understand what it'll mean for you. They are going to pull you into gestalt, the way they did before. That way, when the Arkytior shows up, they can shield you from the full effects and keep you from burning out."

Her chin rose.

"I understand. Will I die?"

"No, but it might feel that way for a while," he told her with a sigh.

She was silent for a while.

"I don't want to do this," she sighed. "But… there are so many lives at stake… I just can't not go… I just can't. Does that make any sense?"

"Of course it does," he told her and ruffled her hair. "Now, my dear niece, let's go out and stomp bugs."

Adie nodded. She and Tomoko waited as the rest of the Mashas gathered. The door opened and Guinn was framed in the doorway. They all paused, staring at him. He glanced at the Mashas and then frowned.

"Get moving! There are billions of lives at stake, you can kill me later, all right!" he shouted and they all ran past him out the door. Rose grinned at him.

"Not exactly the most rousing battle cry, Guinn," she teased and he ran a distracted hand through his hair.

"I was only thinking of posterity in reference to making sure there will be one." He rolled his eyes and then the three of them got to work.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23 - Big Bad Bugs

The two TARDIS lifted off and Koschei frowned at the console. He turned and looked around at Adie, Jake, and the gathered Mashas.

"You all ready?" he asked and they nodded. "Right, then out you get and good luck!" he said and opened the door.

Susan grabbed Adie's hand, holding her still for a moment, while she wove her into the gestalt.

"We've got you, Adie," Susan assured her with a small smile and Adie nodded and ran to the opened door, putting on her helmet before she launched herself into space.

* * *

High above the surface of the planet, the swarm of insects had been chewing away at the boundaries of the Loop. It was tricky work, if they pushed forward too hard, they were transported instantly to the other side of the Loop, so it required the patient relentlessness of a machine to chew away cautiously for weeks and months at a time.

The tireless efforts of the swarm had finally paid off. Even if each reset had reduced the swarm's size and undone some of their efforts, the weakening in the Trans Möbius Barrier remained and they would return to it, working steadily until a tiny gleaming portal had been gnawed into it. Once they were through, enlarging the portal was the much easier task.

Although it had started out slowly, it was now gaining momentum. Other portals glimmered into existence nearby. In the depths of outer space, swarms of beetles, wasps, and other insects suddenly burst into being, squeezing through the newly created gap, then spreading their wings, and heading towards the dark round mass immediately visible orbiting its far-away sun.

* * *

Tomoko was last out of the TARDIS, having stepped aside so that Adie could step through. She was just about to launch herself off into space and then she stopped, just staring at the terrible sight below them.

Across the snowy landscape there was a shadow that had not been there before. It stretched out for miles, reaching hopefully for the horizon. It was immediately obvious what had cast it, as a tower made of identical, serrated segments, was edging upwards, pointing straight up into the sky. It was already taller than a skyscraper and it was continuing to grow.

"Er… Koschei?" she called back, looking over her shoulder at him, where he and Susan were bent over the controls, working at setting up their position for firing the Lens.

"I see it," he replied, glancing at the monitor and then back down at the controls. Susan merely nodded and kept at it her labours.

The ground was shaking, the snow shattering with a terrible grinding noise. It was like the planet was shaking itself apart, the very earth screaming as it was forced aside.

"Koschei?" Tomoko was now sounding distinctly alarmed. They were in flight, so they were seeing the tower from above, but there was no mistaking its size.

"Yes, I said I see it," he repeated, his voice grim.

The ground a half a mile away began to crack more violently, ice shattering and crunching as another tower slowly rose up into the air, until it stood straight up, parallel to the first one.

"Koschei?" Tomoko had no idea what he was supposed to say or do, except that the size of these structures frightened her. She wasn't even consciously aware of what she was doing; she was rarely frightened and had never before had anyone to call to when she was.

"Yes, I am looking at the monitor," he reminded her, his voice gentle. "We need to get into position or this isn't going to work. Lives are at stake here, Tomoko."

With an effort, she tore her eyes away from the impossible thing below her.

"We're in a gravity well!" She shouted at him, even though she knew that he must realize this for himself. "We're in a bloody gravity well! Why isn't it crushed by the gravity well?"

"Honeycomb formation, lots of tensile strength, but not as much mass as it looks like, that's how they can make something that big while still constrained by gravity," he told her, his hands moving over the TARDIS controls with speed and determination. Susan looked up at her.

"Tomoko, we're running out of time," she pointed out gently.

"We're taking the shot inside the Loop? Before it breaks out?" The console beeped at her words, now registering multiple earthquakes. A nearby hill shattered, then another on the opposite side, and then the entire world seemed to be moving. The towers suddenly lurched upwards, as the head to which they were attached rose and shook off the dirt, boulders pounding the soil like small meteors.

"We may not have enough time, the Lens needs to power up and they are moving rather fast," Koschei told her, sounding calm, but his face was pale and strained.

"Love, we're getting some really unpleasant sensor readings," Susan told them, just as alarms suddenly blared. All around them they could hear THUNKing noises, like rain, or hail.

"Proximity alert… looks like they are onto us." Tomoko pulled her command helmet onto her head. She touched a button on the console, running a feed from the main monitor directly into her viewscreen. "We'll try to thin them out before they get inside, but we need to scatter them somehow." Her voice now came through the console as she headed out of the TARDIS.

"Yes, that's why I built the guns," he pointed out. "EMP scatters them."

"On it."

* * *

The alarms started blaring in earnest, and the girls launched themselves from the opened doors, clearing a path with their EMP guns, using their jet-boots to fly away from the TARDIS and their guns to keep the area clear.

"They're going for the TARDIS!" London-11 shouted over the radio.

"Get after them, Team 6, go!" Tomoko called out and ten of the girls peeled off and flew over.

"On it!" Madison-17 replied and they began sweeping the crowd of insects with the EMP guns, causing a rain of tiny metallic forms.

"It's working!" Sophie-24 called. She snapped her boots together, sending herself shooting forward and took out another cluster.

"Not that well," Shevia-48 spat out. "There's too many of them!" She spun in a circle, eyeing the mass of insects zipping around them, so dense that they seemed to fill the air.

"The swarm's so thick we can't make a dent in it," Tamara-61 shot back, firing into as many groups as she could, but having to keep giving ground.

"Doctor! Rose!" Called Tomoko, sending him images through the cams she had rigged into her helmet. "Are you seeing this? We're only catching the fringes of the swarm, there's a huge mass of them, do you see them?"

* * *

Inside the other TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose exchanged worried glances, before dropping back to the boards.

Guinn was typing away madly beside them, desperately trying to get the Lens to cycle up faster.

"Yes, Tomoko," he told her. "Just give me a moment, please, some of these systems are still not at one hundred percent. Ah! Got it!" he cried and a flash of something came from their TARDIS. It burned across the sky, flaming the thicker swarm, frying them completely, and their ashes were blown away by the winds. "I only have enough power to run the shields, or the guns, I can't do both, so that isn't something I can do often," he told her.

Rose smiled bleakly at him and the Doctor nodded. They all three knew that they had just made themselves into a target for the Manifold by doing that, but none of them disagreed with his choice.

Far below them, a shelled pair of wings rose into the air, and underneath them a pair of clear, silvered wings, so high that the wind they created cast the smaller bugs back and away, knocking several of the Mashas from the sky as well. The enormous beetle lumbered to its feet and shook the dirt off of its back, hills falling away and into the pits it had created with its movements. Tons of earth that landed like an avalanche.

"Well," the Doctor muttered. "That got their attention."

* * *

Nikki-69 was smashed into by a bug the size of a truck. She felt no pain, but the impact forced the air from her lungs and sent her spinning through the air, until she crashed into a mountain.

Swearing profusely, she grabbed at an outcropping, only to realize that she was staring at the gleaming silver of the Manifest. She hurled herself away from the surface, heart pounding in her chest.

It wasn't a mountain.

It was an insect.

* * *

Adie frowned at the scanners.

"What's that tower doing there, that wasn't there... oh," she said abruptly, turning a bit pale.

Big didn't begin to describe it.

It was an antenna that rose first, taller than the Empire State Building; the other followed in short order. Moments later, a portion of the nearby mountain range rose up and shook the dirt off of its back. Its head looked upwards.

* * *

Rose saw it on the monitor, but couldn't quite grasp the size of it. Her attention was mostly on the controls, trying to keep the TARDIS stable and in position, as the bugs hammered mercilessly against it.

Suddenly, something smashed into her. A wave of something so powerful and so vast that she staggered under the weight of it. The TARDIS console erupted in a shower of sparks, the shields hopelessly overwhelmed.

"Doctor!" she screamed.

"Telepathic!" he gasped. "They're telepathic!"

"Too loud!" Guinn shouted, fighting the controls. Rose was trying to think, trying to fly the TARDIS, but it felt like someone was pulping her brains.

The insect was just so huge that it was sending out waves of thought too strong for them. It was like being caught in a gigantic wave of sound and emotion, it was tearing at her mind, shredding her apart. It was just so big.

She fell to the floor, overwhelmed and unconscious.

* * *

Tomoko heard Rose screaming and the Doctor shouting and then the TARDIS was falling from the sky, as her radio sparked in her ear. Adie gasped and convulsed, clutching her head, and then dropped like a stone.

The other TARDIS whirled crazily and fell as well. Scores of girls chased them both, trying to catch them or at least guide their descent.

"Doctor? Doctor! What just happened? Doctor? Dammit!"

"Zero Room!" he gasped and then fell silent. She switched channels with desperate haste.

"Jake!" She adjusted the trim of her boots, shooting like an arrow towards the falling TARDIS. "Dammit Jake, where are you? I need you!"

"Right here," he told her, his voice calm and unruffled.

"Grab Adie!" Manoeuvring with some difficulty, she got to the door and fumbled with the key she had been given earlier.

"Already on it," he replied and she saw the bright burst of his jets as he went after her.

* * *

Moira-3 saw the TARDIS falling and snapped her boots together, propelling herself towards the craft as fast as she could. She shouldered a beetle aside, not caring if she took damage.

The TARDIS were their only way out of the Loops, lose them and the Mashas would be trapped in here with the Manifold. She dove under the craft and pushed upwards, trying to slow its descent.

Maureen-65 joined her, then Tracey-70, then Kimberley-21, all of them straining against the weight and momentum of the falling ship.

"I'm coming!" Mica-41 called, her voice as calm as ever and she quickly added her boots' thrust to the others.

The ground was coming up fast and Moira-3 did not want to be caught between the TARDIS and the cold hard ground when gravity brought them together.

She shot out from under it and grabbed from the side, the rest following suit, and together they slowed the fall enough to set it down on the ground.

Looking around at the huge insects rising all around them though, Moira-3 didn't know if it was better or worse this way.

* * *

Jake jetted towards the ground. He saw Adie falling through the air like a rag doll and he shot after her. All around him insects were swarming, but he dodged them and focused on Adie.

He came up beside her and the ground was getting rather close. He caught her around the waist, swung his legs down and jetted back upwards, with her held tightly against him, feeling her legs smack against his as he changed direction so suddenly.

"Come on, Adie, work with me here," he muttered as her limp body forced his boots to work harder against both of their weight and inertia.

He dodged around a large flying beetle, headed for where the other girls were trying to slow the plummet of the TARDIS. He had Adie, but where the hell could he take her, with both ships tumbling from the sky?

"Have you got her?" Tomoko's voice broke in on the radio.

"Yeah! Where do you want her?" he called back.

"Take her to Guinn's TARDIS, we'll have it stable by the time you get here, you may need to line up with the door though, think you can manage?"

"Sure thing, I'm on it," he replied and headed for the falling TARDIS. Several of the Mashas had gotten under it and were slowing it down, which made it slightly easier, but it was still at a bit of an oblique angle. He saw that a second team had gotten Susan's TARDIS down safely, but he didn't have time to worry about that.

"When you get inside, take the left hand corridor, all the way down, two lefts then a right, second door, should be a completely white room, drop her in there!"

"Got it. Where will you be?" he asked and threw himself at the doors, barrelling inside and then rolling to a stop. "I've had better landings," he muttered and got up, carrying Adie, and raced for the room Tomoko had described.

"I'll be getting the wounded to Susan's Medical Bay," She replied. "Check if the Doctor, Rose, and Guinn, are already in the Zero Room! If not, find them and get their arses inside, you copy?"

"I copy," he answered and stepped into the pure white room. The Doctor and Rose, were huddled together on the floor. Guinn was sitting with his back against the wall, looking pale and shaken.

"Shut the door!" the Doctor begged and Jake kicked it shut behind him.

"Oh, so much quieter!" Rose gasped in relief and Jake blinked.

"Quieter than what?"

"That big beetle was broadcasting telepathically, we got caught in it. It was like standing next to Krakatoa, my dear boy," the Doctor sighed.

"Is Susan all right?" Guinn asked, his eyes bleak, and Jake shrugged.

"I assume so, the Mashas got her TARDIS down and are getting yours down, so I think so," he told him and Guinn nodded, looking as though he were clinging to faint hope.

Jake set Adie down next to the Doctor and Rose.

"I've gotta get back out there. How are we going to fire the Lens with her unconscious?"

"We're not. We have to consider Plan B," the Doctor answered.

"What's Plan B?"

"I'll tell you once I've figured it out," he replied and Jake nodded.

"Right, be back soon."

Jake got through the door as fast as he could and went looking for Tomoko and Diana. They still had lots of bugs to stomp.

"...ke, call me back when you pick this up!" His radio crackled into life the moment he left the room. "Come on, we need you! Jake! Damn zero rooms anyway!"

"Coming!" he shot back and was out and running as fast as he could.

"Listen, we've got bugs coming out our arses down here, we need to get away from them, but there are so many that all the scanners are jamming up! Find us a way out of here! Di! On your 12!"

"I'm coming," he muttered, but didn't bother using the radio. He jumped out the door, ignited his boot rockets and flew up into a cloud of bugs. "Right. Back to work."

* * *

Inside the TARDIS the world was screaming, Susan clutched her head and cried out, reeling from the onslaught. She'd been damaged by the attacks she'd withstood in the Tower, back on Gallifrey. She had spent the last few years with Koschei trying to heal that damage, but the bug was tearing through her blasted mindscape, re-opening old wounds. She didn't know how to shut it down, so she just tried to hold on, battered by the waves of the thing's mind, until she couldn't any more, and then she crumpled into a heap.

* * *

Koschei felt her falling. His shields were barely strong enough to protect him from the battering he was receiving. Now he stretched his own shields to protect her, straining against the overwhelming power of the Manifold's communication, feeling it like a wind of flaying knives cutting him apart. He picked her up in his arms and began slowly, unsteadily, to walk with her. He made it to the Zero Room, elbowed open the door, and set her inside.

"Come back to me," he breathed to her, before stepping back outside and shutting the door behind him, his body shuddering with the mental beating.

"K-9," Koschei said, "Activate emergency protocol 7. Can you do that?" He ground the words out, fighting to keep himself conscious, but he needed to keep them all safe and this would get them safely back to the ground.

"Affirmative, Koschei!" the dog replied. Unaffected by the telepathic wave, He cheerfully obeyed his orders.

He dragged himself back to the Zero Room, got inside, and slammed the door behind him. Koschei fell to his knees next to Susan, checking her over, his fingers grazing the pulse point on her throat. When he found the pulse throbbing gently, he breathed out his relief and quietly collapsed beside her.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24 - Psychic Hangover

"Bloody hell, that hurt," the Doctor grumbled. The complete silence of the Zero Room shielded them, but they were now trapped in there.

"You can say that again," Rose groused.

"Didn't expect that, should have," the Doctor muttered.

"So should I, I didn't run the maths on the psychic variables once the damn thing got that large, stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do," Guinn groused to himself.

"We were lucky it wasn't bigger," he sighed. "We wouldn't have any brains left to think with."

"It's the gravity well, even a honeycomb structure will only take them so far. Once it hits space, there'll be no stopping it's growth rate," Guinn reminded him.

"That's a pleasant thought," Rose sighed.

"At which point we'll be toast, if we can't create a psychic dampener shield for ourselves. I wonder if modifying the Crown would help?" the Doctor murmured, obviously thinking aloud.

"We'll run it through the Sceptre Chamber," Guinn muttered. "That'll give us the power boost it would need." He winced, because he knew what a pain it was going to be to do so. "But… maybe we should be a bit tipsy when we try it," he snarked.

"Not a bad idea, it'll be bloody uncomfortable," the Doctor agreed.

"Hey, never fly and drink!" Rose chuckled.

"I'll check where we are." Guinn rose, prepared to go outside, but the Doctor waved him back.

"Sit still, there is an easier way," he commented and pulled a thin cord from his pocket. Slipping it under the door to the Zero room, he attached the other end to his notepad and grinned up at Guinn. "It's an antenna, lets me read in here without distraction," he explained.

"So, what is the latest on the world wide web?" he sat back down.

"All of the Time Lords are in Zero Rooms and the girls are on their own. How can we fire the damn Lens if we can't get Adie in position?" he asked.

"We can't," Guinn said flatly. "We have to have shielding. The battle's going to take place in the real world."

"Right. I suppose we can wrap Adie in a crash blanket and set her up where we need to. She doesn't have to be conscious for the firing itself, does she?" He looked disgusted by what he was saying.

"Actually, yes, she does have to be conscious, but it shouldn't be a problem, just modify one of the stealth suits, strip it to the bone and add shielding. Easy."

"Yes, that would work." The Doctor nodded, looking relieved.

"We can give one of the other clones a stealth generator, give her a partner to sneak her in and out where she needs to be… but she won't be stealthed when the lens fires. We'll need to keep the swarm off of her for the length of time needed for the warm-up. That might be a challenge."

"Naw, we'll just give Jake a gun, she'll be fine. He's kind of terrifying actually." Rose said that with a tone that might have been admiration.

"The time factor will work in our favour. It's a month in here to a day out there, we should have enough time to complete the modifications and be on its trail."

"Good, as soon as they are clear, we can get to work," the Doctor agreed.

* * *

Koschei moved to Susan's side and lay down next to her, holding her against him. He kissed her softly, and she stirred under his hands, kissing him back, and then slowly opened her eyes.

"What was that thing?" she asked and he chuckled.

"I think I will give you the honour of cataloguing the Fauna, love," he told her and she chuckled.

"Insanitus Ranivore?" she suggested and looked at him with a smile. "Thank you."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm mostly okay. I'm afraid that some of my flinch responses to telepathic attacks are... no longer useful, however I have found them really hard to stop." She looked embarrassed by the whole thing.

"We'll get it sorted in time," he assured her with a kiss. He knew that he shouldn't, but he was rather enjoying the alone time with his wife. He liked Guinn, but just then, he was feeling shaken and a bit selfish. He could have lost her and he didn't like that thought at all.

"Right," she agreed. "Then it's back to making Nanites for me. I actually had a couple of ideas to increase the effectiveness of the retrovirus. The Rani's DNA coding was really sloppy and there was some dangling junk DNA that I can piggyback onto and I might be able to insert a frameshift mutation early enough in the sequence to completely alter the translation from the original! If I arrange the frameshift mutation correctly, it can cause the reading of the codons after the mutation to code for completely different amino acids, you see. The frameshift mutation will also alter the first stop codon encountered in the sequence," she told him enthusiastically.

"That's great, dear," Koschei said, even though he didn't really understand it at all.

There was a distinct rumbling noise through the floor.

"Ah, it seems we've landed," Koschei said.

"So we have," Susan sighed. "With our tails between our legs."

* * *

The two TARDIS managed to get back to ground mere seconds before the big bug stretched out its enormous wings and took off, doing unspeakable damage, blowing everything everywhere as if a hurricane had suddenly taken the blasted landscape.

Those Mashas still airborne were flung about like toys, and they landed hard, some of them leaving little craters in the snow.

The smaller bugs got out of the way as it approached the rift... it then divided itself into bugs that were merely colossal, small enough to fit through the rift. It went easily over to the other side, reassembling itself after it had passed through.

The TARDIS were on the ground, safe. The big bug was gone, escaped into the larger galaxy. And within the rift, there wasn't a single bug left.

* * *

"Where are we? Oh, back in the zero room. That's nice. Ow, my head feels like it has been through the spin cycle. Is that normal?" Adie wondered.

"Nothing about any of this is normal," the Doctor sighed.

"If the Rani were still alive, I would murder her!" Rose grumbled. "Was she trying to get everyone, herself included, killed? Insane doesn't even begin to encompass this!"

"Right, analyse the structure, figure out a strategy," the Doctor moaned and dragged himself to the door. "Got to save the universe again."

"I'm coming," Guinn agreed, scrambling to her feet.

"Damn, but we were lucky," said Tomoko across the radio. "Everyone who is injured, get your arses to medi-bay. Everyone else, fan out, establish perimeters, I don't trust that the bugs are gone until we see it with our very own eyes, anything as big as a flea gets reported straight away, clear? Move out. I don't want so much as a snowflake getting within a half click of us," she said, and clicked off her radio. "I hope they don't have fleas. Brrrrr." Very gingerly, she opened the Zero Room door and peeked inside.

"Hello, Tomoko," Rose told her, grinning at her with that tongue tip smile. "We were just about to have a tea party, care to join in?" she asked.

Tomoko came in, stopped by Adie, and extended her hand. Adie pulled herself to her feet and the two girls hugged before breaking apart.

"I'm more in a whisky mood," she said truthfully. "The bugs have broken out, I don't think there are any left here, but we're checking. I've begun a structural analysis and am backlogging through the psychic wavelengths, so that we can check for patterns. We'll need shielding. Everyone okay in here?"

"Exhausted and feeling like we've been beaten up by a marching band, but otherwise fine," the Doctor assured her.

"We're already working on a plan for shielding," Guinn assured her, looking haggard and weary.

"Great, what's the plan?" Tomoko asked.

"You all right Adie?" the Doctor asked, looking at her with a worried expression.

"I'm all right, that… wasn't what I was expecting. I'm afraid I didn't make a very good showing for my first combat," she said sheepishly.

"You're still alive, so you did good," the Doctor contradicted her. "Plus, in case you hadn't noticed, we're all in here with you." he looked over at Tomoko and flashed a grin. "We're going to do something gloriously stupid and dangerous!"

"I fell over just as fast," Rose agreed.

"No one could have withstood that and remained functional," Guinn assured her.

"Well… thank you then," she smiled at them shyly. "What is the plan? Shielding? How can I help?"

"Gloriously stupid and dangerous?" Tomoko asked, looking both concerned and amused.

"That can wait a tick. We just need to see how badly damaged the TARDIS are this time," the Doctor grumbled. "We only just got them repaired from last time, but never mind…"

Adie smiled at him. "I've maintained this place for two hundred years," she said. "I'll check it out."

"The TARDIS? I thought you were caring for that station thing," Rose exclaimed.

"The station had docking cradles," she said. "This TARDIS was parked while Guinn was in stasis. I spent most of my time on the station, but did come inside here as well."

"I noticed that you'd been doing basic maintenance, thank you," Guinn replied.

"Right, well, she's all yours now, so it's good that you know how to take care of her," the Doctor told her and got up. "Now, let's go get tea, eh? I'm hungry!"

"All right," Adie said, got a few feet away, then turned around. "Wait, what do you mean, all mine?"

"That's what I would like to know!" Guinn agreed, looking surprised.

"Didn't the Doctor tell you?" Tomoko asked in surprise, looking around between them all.

"Tell us what?" Guinn demanded.

"Oh! I set Adie as primary pilot and locked you out of the system, I also reconfigured the TARDIS so it would be a good place for the Mashas to live, so that's good too. Right, think there are any cookies about?" he asked and headed down the hallway.

"Wait, you did what?" Guinn protested.

"You can't do that without asking first!" Rose protested.

Tomoko scowled at the Doctor. "You didn't tell anyone? Not even Rose?"

Adie was looking back and forth between the Doctor and Guinn as if watching a tennis match; then abruptly mumbled something indistinct about the Artron energy levels and made herself scarce. Tomoko watched her go and seemed to think that was a really good plan, because she scampered after her.

"You took his TARDIS?" Rose accused, brows lowering and the Doctor blinked in surprise.

"Well, it's not like he needs it," he told her.

"Don't you think that I might have some say in that?" Guinn scowled.

"No, not really, you'd only have used it to do something noble and stupid, or to run off, thinking you were 'protecting' Susan," he stated flatly.

"And the problem with that is what, precisely?"

"Because Susan has suffered enough!" the Doctor snapped back. "She does not need you breaking her hearts! Besides, you owe Adie and the Mashas! They need a home, something that belongs to them. This way everyone gets what they need most."

"What the bloody hell are you thinking?" Guinn growled. "How are you going to fly my TARDIS when Adie goes down? Susan is going to have a lot more to worry about than broken hearts if we don't take care of the Manifold!"

"I put myself and Rose on as co-pilots, of course, it's just you who can't fly her!" the Doctor retorted. "As for Susan, you really ought to be worrying more about her than you seem to be, she's gone through enough."

The Doctor had always been able to punch the Master's buttons, and now his glower was becoming outright dangerous. His fist was clenched at his side as if it was all he could do not to belt the Doctor on the spot.

"Stop it!" Rose demanded suddenly. "Doctor! You're managing people again, trying to get everyone to do what you think is best for them, but you cannot take the man's TARDIS from him without saying a bloody word!"

"He won't need it though, he'll be with Susan and he owes these girls! They need this place, the resource it represents, and Adie is owed most of all!" He retorted and he was frowning as well.

"I'm not disputing that!" Rose replied in a brittle tone. "What I am disputing is your high handed assumption that you have the right to decide that without asking anyone else!" The Doctor opened his mouth to argue back and then shut it again, looking a bit chagrined.

"Honestly, I meant to, but things got away from me," he muttered, rubbing his hand over his hair.

"Look, maybe you're right, he won't need it and the Mashas do, but even so, you have to talk to people about these things." Rose told him in a calmer, but no less firm voice. The Doctor nodded and looked at Guinn a bit guiltily.

Guinn turned on his heel and marched away. He was shaking. The Doctor sometimes had a tendency to go too far, and this, it seemed, was one of those times.

"Guinn! Koschei! Come on, I am sorry!" the Doctor sighed out and followed him out of the Zero Room, looking chagrined.

"Apologize a bit better than that!" Rose snapped at him.

"I am sorry. I apologize. I shouldn't have done it without discussing it with you," the Doctor said.

Guinn whirled on him and pushed him against the wall, hard, his hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

"Do you really think," he said, without a trace of levity in his voice, "That I don't worry enough about Susan? That I would run out and leave her before she sends me away? Is that really what you think?" His eyes were blazing but the Doctor knew the set of his jaw; he was hurt and scared far more than angry.

"What I really think? I really think that if you got a maggot in your brain that she was 'better off without you', that you'd go off and die on her, in some noble, misguided attempt to make her happy, while what would actually happen, is that Susan would spend the rest of her life convinced she drove you to your death! That's what I think. I saw it in Koschei, the way he thought he was dirt under her boots! He was willing to let her go after the Prophecy was fulfilled, because he thought that she 'deserved better' than him!" The Doctor shot back. "Don't you dare tell me that the thought hadn't crossed your mind, because I know it has!"

"Of course it has," he let the Doctor go, now just looking sad. "And she would be better off, I've been trying to explain that to her."

"Oh, I see what you mean, Doctor," Rose said, looking at Guinn in sudden understanding. "I take it all back. Sorry for shouting." She turned to look at Guinn. "You are out of your mind if you think that. She wouldn't be better off without you, not at all. Look, I had to make a choice once, between two versions of the Doctor and even as happy as I am with this one, I still worry and fret about the other one. I worry that he's alone, that he's sad, that he's hurt. Not knowing, not being sure, it drives me mad and I'm not bonded to the other one! How Susan could even bear it it, if you walked away and she couldn't ever know if you were all right, I can't imagine. So, don't be an idiot and say she'd be 'better off', because she'd be a basket case in a fortnight!"

Guinn looked shocked.

"I would never willingly walk away from Susan. Not until she sends me away. But," he rested his hand against a wall, "Couldn't you have said something? Anything? After Susan, this… was the only thing I ever loved. My only friend." He shook his head.

The Doctor winced and Rose nodded.

"Yeah, she loves you too, you know. Even though you gave her a terrible time of it after Susan died. You scared the hell out of her. She was constantly worried that you'd drop both of you into a sun or something," Rose told him. She slipped an arm around him in a hug.

Guinn was now openly horrified.

"Destroy the place where Susan died? I never would have done that. Not ever. But…" He put his head against the wall. "But maybe… maybe it is time to move on. Time for a better pilot. Maybe she would be better off too," his hand stroked the wall absent-mindedly. "Just… let me put a few things together and I'll go."

"Come on, Guinn, I'll help you pack up your things," Rose agreed and glared at the Doctor. "You! You stay put and out of mischief!" She hugged Guinn again. "I am so, so sorry that he's an arse!" Guinn shook his head.

"No, he is actually right. This will be better for Susan, and that is all that matters."

"Doesn't matter if the end was right, the method was all wrong!" Rose disagreed, walking with him down the hallway. "He's got to learn that, Emperor of Gallifrey or not, he's not the boss of us all."

Behind them, the Doctor sighed and shook his head. He was quite certain that he'd be sleeping on the couch tonight. But, he'd gotten Guinn to say that he wouldn't leave Susan, which was as good as a promise from him. He was content with that, couch or no couch.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25 - Moving On

Rose walked beside Guinn as they headed to his rooms.

"He loves you like a brother, you know, for all his idiocy. He did it from the best of intentions. He's just crap at thinking things like this through. He sees the end point and wants to get there, but forgets about all the middle bits," she explained.

"If the end is beneficial to Susan, that is all that matters." He smiled at her gently.

"No, your feelings matter as well, Guinn," Rose insisted. "You love this TARDIS, it's not fair to take it from you, without even asking. If the reasons were good, then talking to you first would have still gotten the right end and would have done it without hurting you!"

"I haven't exactly done anything to inspire that sort of trust," he pointed out. For some reason, he didn't mind when Rose followed him to his room. He felt comfortable with her. He wasn't sure why, but at that moment he didn't care. He was thinking of other things.

"I don't know about that, you haven't done nothin' to not be..." she fell silent and took a sudden indrawn breath. She was staring at the wardrobe and her eyes were swimming with tears. "Sorry," she muttered.

He was surprised at her reaction. His hands had been on the wardrobe doors, and now he hesitated there.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded abruptly.

"I wasn't born a Time Lord you know," she said in a baffling non sequitur.

"Weren't you?" He opened the doors and took down the box of Susan's things, and only then realized that it had been opened. He stopped abruptly, his breath catching in his throat. His expression was crushed.

"No... What's wrong?"

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the box in his limp hands and Rose dropped down in front of him.

"I'm… sorry," he said in a rather wooden tone. "It doesn't matter, of course it doesn't, I…" but the words stuck in his throat.

"I should say it does matter. A very great deal," Rose disagreed. He was silent for a long time.

"These were hers," he finally whispered. "Her things." He closed his eyes. "I always kept them very carefully, I…"

Suddenly he was talking. He had never talked about any of this before, and certainly not to Rose, whom he had met so recently. "I tried everything, everything to bring her back. You can't imagine… the places I went… defied Rassilon to his face… and I couldn't save her. All I could do was…" but his voice wouldn't take him any further.

"I know what I did to save the Doctor," she told him softly. "Love will set you on paths you never imagined. I was a human, you know. Just a shop girl from London. I fell in love and now I'm a Time Lord, living on Gallifrey, in an alternate universe where World War Two never happened. So, yeah, I can imagine what you would have done for her. You'd have done anything at all for her. That's what real love means."

"I killed her," he said, his eyes brimming. "I couldn't save her. All I could do was try to set her free." She nodded.

"Yeah, but if you could have saved her, you would have, if you had to kill her, it was because there were no other options. I know you, Koschei, and I know what you'd do for her, I've seen it for a while now, in the other one, so don't you tell me that you weren't torn to shreds about it, cause I know you were. I can feel it."

He clenched her to him suddenly, shaking in every limb and she hugged him back fiercely. He couldn't seem to find any words.

"You've been carrying this all by yourself, but not anymore. You're my mate and I'll help too," she assured him. "You don't have to do it all alone anymore."

"I'm sorry, I am so sorry, I shouldn't burden you with this."

"Nonsense! That's what friends are for, after all, for us to burden each other and by doin' so make the burdens lighter, eh?" she told him, a small smile on her face.

He looked at her and seemed surprised.

"It's been a… a long time since I have had a friend."

"Then you are overdue," she decided and smiled at him. "Besides, while you might not know it, we've been mates for just ages. Your double's my best chum, didn't you know?"

"No, I… I suppose it never occurred to me." He took a breath. "He's a very fortunate fellow, my other self. I try not to be too jealous. So far it's been very hard."

"Well, you've found your fortune too now," she pointed out. "You've got friends, family, and Susan to love you, not so bad, eh?" She looked at the wardrobe. "Everything she always wanted for you." The last part was nearly a whisper.

He blinked at her.

"Everything she wanted for him, you mean."

She looked at him and then back at the wardrobe.

"No... well, it hardly matters anymore, does it? She'll be able to rest knowing you're okay now." She rose and briskly looked around the room. "We'll need some float palettes and then we'll get to packing up."

He shook his head.

"No," he said, with the white box in his hands. "I don't need anything but this."

"Nonsense, you're going to use the other Koschei's toothbrush? Let's get your things packed up. You ought to have something of your own, you know," she replied firmly.

"I… didn't think I would be staying that long," he said, but stood.

"If you thought that, you don't know Susan very well. That girl is devoted and determined. She loves someone and that's it, she loves them forever. She's like the Doctor that way, it's why they are so frightfully reluctant to love anyone at all. They can't stop it once it's started, and it hurts them somethin' awful when it goes bad." She stopped and looked at him. "You were there for the debacle of the Doctor's first marriage, you saw how it broke him to have that fall apart, so you know. That's Susan all over, she's the same way. When her husband David died, she just froze over, couldn't just let go and move on. She's not made that way, you see?"

"Susan is wonderful," he said while getting his toothbrush, and meant every word.

"So's the Doctor, when he's not being an arse," Rose agreed, a smile on her face. "They both are."

"Don't be too angry with him… the Doctor, I mean," he said. "He was just doing what was best."

"Look, when I first met Susan, I was a Cockney human girl, she didn't say a thing about me bein' married to her grandfather an' you know she coulda. Her Mum sure had some rude things to say about me, I'll have you know," she growled. "You don't have to sell me on Susan, I think she's fantastic. She turned me into a Time Lord, after all. Made sure that the Doctor and I could have a real future. That's pretty good, right" she asked, smiling again, as she grabbed his things, tucked them into boxes and began loading them onto a float palette.

"It sounds just like her," he smiled almost wistfully.

"Yeah, she's pretty special," Rose agreed. "When we first ran into your other self, he was half crazy, out of his mind, cause he thought she'd died on Gallifrey. He was a right mess, he was, so I know you must have been too. Let's get you moved in with them proper-like, and then you three can take care of each other, and if her Mum says word one, you send her to me, right? I have things I want to say to her, I do!"

"To meet her mother I would have to leave the TARDIS," he pointed out in an amused tone.

"Yeah, well, I will be expecting you at dinner, you! Don't think you're gonna sulk in a TARDIS! You will come out and meet my kids, eat my cooking, and pretend it's all right," she teased.

He looked petrified.

"In public? Why don't we just invite you over to Susan's place?"

"Because Susan and Koschei live with us, silly!" she told him, still working briskly as she moved through the room. "We live in that bloody huge Line House, all rebuilt on the mountain. Awful place for a house, really, but the Doctor loves it. Susan and Koschei have their own suite of rooms, sure, but they still live with us, take meals with us, you know, the usual. Koschei said he spent half his childhood in that house, so you must know it!"

"Of course I know it, I… go back there? No, I think I'll live on the TARDIS. It'll be fine." He was looking more and more alarmed.

"Guinn, you don't have to dance naked on the tabletops, you know. No one is going to force you to do anything you don't like to. But, Susan's used to going in to breakfast with us all, to having the kids around, to being part of a family. If you're hiding out, she's gonna feel like she ought to be taking care of you, so maybe once a week, you can come out and have tea?" she asked gently.

He swallowed. Hard.

"Maybe once a week," he agreed.

"Right, I think I've got it all packed." He looked up and realized that while he'd been panicking, Rose had competently gotten about six loads packed up for transport.

"How did you do that? That's amazing."

"Shop girl, my dear fellow," she told him with a laugh. "I'm used to hard work, plus my Mum and I hadn't a penny growing up and had to move lots of times in the middle of the night, before the landlord came by."

"I see… I'll help you carry it over," he said in a somewhat stunned tone.

She stopped and looked at him.

"You know, I asked Susan once what the worst part was of having been bonded to you for all that time, when you were still a nutter. You know what she said?"

"What?" His tone was almost fearful.

"That she couldn't make things better for you. That she couldn't help you more. She had a howling madman in her head and she was most upset that you were in pain. That's what she is, Shay, so don't you ever, even for a moment, think that anything at all, would ever make her want anything for you but your happiness, okay?" she asked him and her eyes were curiously intent on him, as though she was trying to tell him something important.

He nodded, blinking hard.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She hugged him, throwing her arms around him and squeezing hard.

"You're a top rate bloke, you know!" she told him, a bit muffled. "Don't forget that."

"I think I just have you fooled," he said, but a bit of a smile touched the corners of his lips.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," she laughed. "You keep pretending you're all bad and stuff, but I know you both far too well." She stepped back and wagged a finger at him. "Come on, let's get moving. We still have a universe to save, you know!"

He nodded and followed, the white box tucked carefully under his arm.

* * *

The Voice Integrator didn't really need recalibration, but Adie had decided to go ahead and tweak it anyway. Doing so required more than enough work with the dials to keep her out of sight for a few minutes.

She hadn't felt that uncomfortable since the closing days of the project. The exchange had almost reminded her of Farian. This TARDIS had been her only friend for more than a century, but despite that she didn't feel comfortable about stealing it from Guinn. She'd seen how Koschei had acted when he first came aboard, he adored this ship and she suspected that went for Guinn as well. His reaction had been distressed and unhappy, which had made her want to go hide somewhere.

"Are you all right?" Tomoko had followed her, and now eyed her carefully. She saw the look on Adie's face, and came and gave her a hug. "This is for the best, you know."

"He's so upset," Adie murmured. "He's so angry. He used to terrorize me when he was like this. I'm so scared. I don't even have that bloody collar any more and I am just standing here waiting for the pain to hit, when I know good and well it's not coming," her eyes were brimming.

Tomoko pulled her into her arms and Adie shivered for a moment before disengaging.

"Easy," she soothed. "He can't hurt you any more. He's changing."

"I know, but what if he comes after it? I don't want it if it means he's going to try to steal it back…"

"This is for the best," Tomoko repeated. "He's going to see that, Rose will talk him into it, you watch."

"I hate to go," Adie said, angrily scrubbing her eyes. "This has been my only friend for so long…" Tomoko frowned.

"Your only friend?" Adie shook her head.

"You don't know what it was like to be alone on the station," she said. "I got so lonely. I had rigged holographic projectors all over it, and set them on triggers and loops, just to see people walking around, trying to make it feel as if it wasn't so empty. But you couldn't talk to any of the images, nothing had a real personality, only the TARDIS. I didn't feel so lonely when I talked to her. I have been hoping that the Master would take good care of her, but I always understood that this was his home and I never wanted to steal it out from under his feet!"

"Hm." Tomoko's face was neutral. "Well, let me go and talk to the…" but when she turned around, he was standing in the door frame, and she realized he had been there for some minutes.

The Doctor stepped into the room and Adie tried to summon a smile for him.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Uncomfortable," she said truthfully. "Flattered, but… uncomfortable."

Tomoko looked between them both, seeing the expressions on both their faces, and quietly stole out of the room.

"Well, it's all sorted now, TARDIS is yours," he replied and went to check on some of the other systems.

"Look, I… I just don't feel comfortable stealing a TARDIS," she told him. "I mean, yes, it was all very funny when I first thought of it, but I never actually meant to steal it for real. I just thought we would borrow it and give it back."

"But, you're not stealing anything, Adie, Guinn is giving it to you," he corrected. "Once he'd calmed down and thought it over, he saw it was all for the best."

Adie looked at him uncertainly, not entirely convinced.

"He didn't seem very comfortable with the idea."

"People rarely are at first. It's a hard thing, thinking forwards, and most people don't bother with it. Once you've explained though and they've worked it out, it all comes straight," he murmured and it was hard to tell if he was talking to her or to himself.

She was silent for a long time.

"I used to talk to it," she said. "After the Centre was abandoned. She was… the only live thing around, the only thing with a presence. I used to look up places in the navigational systems of the Centre, then come aboard and tell her all about them, the places we could visit someday, and the things that we could do. Big adventures we could have. It kept me sane. But I… never thought we would really do any of them. I thought I would die there, and now I've made all of these promises to her, and I don't even remember most of them…" She seemed close to tears.

"I understand," he murmured. "I used to plan out where I would go and what I would do, should I ever have a TARDIS of my own. All sorts of grand schemes." He patted the wall of the TARDIS with a fond expression. "Now, you can go to those places, Adie, you're free."

"I… I don't even know where to begin," she said truthfully. "My whole life I have tried to fit myself into what everyone else was doing. I never tried to do anything on my own. Never even thought about it before. I have no idea what I want to do. Everyone else seems to know exactly what to do all the time."

"Well, now seems like a good time to start practice, don't you?" he asked.

She looked up at him, biting her lip.

"Um… how?"

"Well, shall we start by thinking about where you would like to go first?"

She chewed on her lip now, thinking hard.

"Apalapucia?" She guessed rather timidly, as if afraid of getting an answer wrong on a difficult test.

"Oh! Lovely! I love that planet!" He replied with a happy smile.

"I have never been there… Farian told me about it," she said shyly. "He would always come and find me after Rassilon had been to visit. He was always trying to make sure I was all right. But he could never…" She shook her head. "And anyway, it's a ridiculous thought, we have the Manifold out there and everything else that's going on, I'm not just going to run out when everything is at such a critical stage."

"Of course you aren't, my dear, but there are thousands of years ahead of us! We have all the time in time to go out and see things! Once the Manifold is done, you can go anywhere you like!" he reminded her.

"Once the Manifold is done, I…" she looked down at her hands, and seemed surprised that she was twisting them together. "I don't… know if I'll want to." She sounded scared.

"Of course you will. You'll have all the Mashas to take care of, they'll need you more than ever, you know. They will have lost their unifying purpose, the very thing that brought them together, will be gone. The revolution will be won and they will have to figure out what to do with themselves. That's your next task, Adie. You will have to help them figure out what sort of future they will have, what their options are," he explained.

"Tomoko was talking about them living on Karn."

"Yes, but to what end? What sort of civilization will they build, or will they even build one? What will they do with themselves? Will they all stay together, or scatter? There are a lot of questions that need to be answered," he pointed out.

"I doubt they have even thought about them right now. I know I never did. I just…" She shook her head. "I never thought about what would happen if they ever made it, if somehow they got out… I just never thought about what would happen them. To them, or to me."

"I know, it's hard for people to see past the immediate problem," he agreed. "However, its time to start thinking about it, because the future is nearly upon you, Adie."

"I know and I… shouldn't I be happy? Or… happier? I'm mostly just scared…" She frowned. "Were you scared? When you stole your TARDIS?"

"Utterly terrified, I must say, but not for myself so much back then. I mean I was worried about my future, but mostly I was scared for my little Susan, for what the Tower would do to her. I had seen what they did to you and I was determined to protect her." He frowned and looked at his shoes. "I took her and ran and I've run for a very long time, Adie."

"Are you still running?"

"No, or at least, much more slowly," he chuckled. "Rose is my resting place, the home of my hearts. The Tower is gone, tumbled to dust, the Daleks and Rassilon are dead and gone, so there aren't so many things to run from anymore."

"I don't think I am ready to take her off on an adventure yet," she mused, resting her hand on the wall. "But I think… maybe one day I will be. I never thought that that would ever happen. So… thank you."

"There is nothing to thank me for, Adie. You stayed alive and helped to extricate yourself, you know. You have been strong, brave, and determined, that's how you did it, my dear," he corrected.

"I don't think I've been very brave," murmured Adie, now blushing madly.

"You wore that collar for a century, knowing that you could have cast it off and escaped, yet you didn't do it. That was very brave, Adie."

Adie looked shocked.

"That was just common sense. I couldn't have left them! They would have died!"

"Common sense? Sacrificing yourself for others? Submitting to pain and loneliness and remaining in a place you abhorred, for a century, was common sense? You underestimate yourself, Adyra, you seriously underestimate yourself! Not one person in a hundred would have stayed! Not one in a thousand would have stayed that long!" He shook his head, looking at her with a soft gentleness that surprised her.

"Farian would have," she said softly. "He was my inspiration for a long time. Still is, in many ways. He was always… trying to make it better for the clones, watching out for them… that's where I learned it from. Farian would have stayed and I… I cared about the clones but… He tried so hard and I wanted to honour the work I knew he would have done. Wow, that sentence sounded much better in my head. It sound so dumb when I say it that way."

"It sounds good to me," the Doctor assured her.

"I think… I think… I think I like the idea of building something," Adie now had a shy smile. "Of making something good. I don't know what but… something. That's what I would like to do. I would like to make things, I think. I just… don't know what kind of things."

"Well, start making all sorts of things and when you find something that makes you really happy, that'll be the thing!" he replied.

"For now, I am thinking of making lunch," she said. "Are you hungry? There might even be cookies."

"Brilliant! I am right behind you!"

She paused and then turned around, pinning him with a sudden fierce gaze.

"Have you been thinking forwards? About me? About this TARDIS?"

"Yes, my dear, I always do, you know. People think I don't, that I wander about and just hope everything will work itself out, but it's not so. The problem with being able to look forward, is that sometimes you don't look like you're paying attention just then. I am though, paying attention. I always am. I've been thinking through the future, trying to work out how things will best serve you all. What's the best outcome for the Mashas? What's the best possibility to present to them? How can I make sure that they are left to find their own destiny, without being seen as a toy for a powerful man's conceit." He trailed off, eyes on some distant sight.

"Will you share those thoughts with me?" Adie asked curiously. "Wait… I think I even have the proper coin…" She fished in her pockets, and handed him a small copper-coloured disk. "Farian gave this to me, a long, long time ago," she told him. "He said it was from Earth, and all of the inhabitants there looked like Time Lords. Isn't this the right coin? It's a penny, I think he said." she smiled at him hopefully.

"It is a penny. They're lucky, you know. You should keep it. My thoughts aren't worth anything as valuable as a gift from someone who cared about you." He looked at the console and then back at her. "They do look like Time Lords. My fault, I suppose, I meddled too much, too often, but that's all right, it came out well. This will work itself out as well. I just need to do what I always do."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Make the hard choices, the ones no one else wants to," he replied and she nodded.

"Farian and I used to have this thing going… I would get things for him, usually from Rassilon, and afterwards he would bring me trinkets. This was one of them." She shook her head, turning the coin over and over in her fingers. "Sometimes he would cry and tell me I was the age of his daughter. I think he was very homesick, maybe." Her brows furrowed as if she still didn't fully understand his actions.

"They'd violated the Sistron Articles rather severely," the Doctor grumbled. "I suspect he knew that he'd be executed, if any of what they'd been doing had gotten out. It was a rock and a hard place, you know. Rassilon on the one side, the consequences of those violations on the other. He was a dead man, either way. It's a pity, because he was a decent sort of bloke. Nice wife, really sweet daughter, his son was an arse, but then, so many really young people are. He might have grown out of it."

"I never met them," she mused. "And I wish I had been able to… he loved them, I could always tell that." She looked at him hopefully. "I'd still like to hear your thoughts. Even without the penny."

"My thoughts? My thoughts are filled with cookies! I think Susan left some behind. Shall we go find out?" he asked with a broad smile and twinkling eyes.

"I think you are distracting me, because you don't want to answer the question," Adie told him. "But, if you don't want to share, I won't press. They are private after all."

"You're a very clever young lady, you know," he told her and headed towards the hall "I think that if you worked it out yourself, you'd come to have the same thoughts anyway." He disappeared into the kitchen and banging about could be heard.

"If you say so," she said, and followed him inside.

* * *

Rose, with Diana, Tomoko, Guinn, and two other Mashas hauled the float palettes across the snowy landscape. She kept her eyes roaming, despite all the assurances that the Manifold had departed, she still felt rather nervous. Besides, with the Manifold having left so quickly, there were actually live people in this Loop now, other than the Time Lords and the Mashas. She had no desire to run into them either. She wasn't quite sure if they were real or not, Guinn's explanation made little sense to her, but they made her uncomfortable, nonetheless.

"There it is," Diana pointed and they altered their course slightly to angle towards Susan's TARDIS, which looked, at the moment, like a cottage, sitting quietly in the middle of a barren wasteland, complete with a trickle of smoke from the chimney.

"Thank you for the help," Rose replied.

"Our pleasure," said Tomoko. The other two girls looked nervous, but didn't comment further. Tomoko looked at Guinn.

"This all your things?"

"Yes, thank you," he replied. "It was kind of you to help." He seemed easier in her company, though he shot her a sly little smile. "Or are you lulling me into a false sense of complacency?" he teased.

"Neither," Tomoko smirked back at him. "I don't want you breaking in at two in the morning because you forgot your favourite boxer shorts with the little hearts on them."

"Please! My boxers are all black silk, I'll have you know. The only thing I'd break in for would be my teddy bear," he assured her with a chuckle. "But, that's packed as well."

"You wear boxers? Really?" Kimberly was looking surprised and a bit put out.

"Did you lose a bet? he asked. "Yes, boxers. Sorry to be so pedestrian."

Kimberly sighed.

"Yes," she grumbled, pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket, and handed to Tomoko, who smirked at them both.

"Don't make bets with Tomoko, Kimberley, she was designed with far too many brains and far too few scruples," he replied, his tone prim, but his lips twitching.

"Hey, I resemble that remark," Tomoko scowled.

"You certainly do," Diana laughed.

"Now, any other bets I can settle?" he asked.

Tomoko narrowed her glowing eyes at him. This had the effect of brightening her already painfully bright aura.

"What?" he asked. "Did you think that your curiosity about me wasn't something that I would expect and take into account? Of course you want to know. You're all smart and imaginative, you're bound to have questions." He shot her a look of amused disbelief. "Shall I start with my early childhood pranks with the Doctor? How about my early experiments with chemical rockets?"

"I have a question," Diana interrupted.

"Yes?" Guinn turned and looked at her with a suddenly wary expression.

"A private question. We'll chat once the palettes are unpacked."

"Fine. I have a question too. How long do you think you will last? With Susan, I mean, " Tomoko said. "Because at this point, barring us all getting killed by the Manifold, things look fairly stable between you all."

"I try not to speculate fruitlessly. Despite the length of our association, I can never predict Susan's behaviour from one moment to the next. On the other hand, Koschei assures me that escape is impossible and I have great faith in his pronouncements," he replied thoughtfully. "He's really far better at all this than I am."

"Well, if Koschei is better at this than you are, and hasn't found a way to escape," she said with a careful, sideways glance at the other Mashas. "Then we'll leave it at that and go on the basis that you are safely… er… incarcerated for the time being." She paused. "Any plans, if we survive all of this?"

"Yes, my plans are to do whatever Susan wants me to do," he replied. "I've been a monster for nine hundred years, Tomoko, completely out of my mind. I think it would be best for me to let others make the decisions for me for a while, until I can be certain that I can trust myself, if I ever can. Susan and Koschei know where all the controls were placed and they are helping me to strip them out, but I've not been sane since I was a child, so it will take a while for me to figure out what sanity even is. Better for me not to make any plans, eh?" He gave her a lopsided smile and they reached the door of the TARDIS.

"Agreed for now. Look," she paused, her lips thinning, and let the others go ahead of her, dragging their boxes aboard. "About the others. Some of them are coming around. Kimberly, for instance. She's not really mad at you, or anything."

"No, that would be me," Diana pointed out and glared at Guinn, who reddened.

"Kimberly has had other things to worry about," he told Tomoko. "She's read the entire MU library, I bet. But, I do grasp your meaning and yours as well, Diana."

"Well I know that Neveah has been over here bullying you," Tomoko pointed out.

"Neveah's... fragile. She needs some serious assistance, from a professional therapist. She's gone through so much and of course she sees me as the symbol of all her pain. I can hardly blame her for that. Nor can I blame you for being miffed either, Diana," he added.

"Just… don't let her scare you, all right? I'm not going to kill you. Neither will anyone else." Diana looked as through she might dispute that statement, but said nothing further, just leaning against the cottage wall and watching them both.

"Tomoko, it takes more than an angry teenager to make me scared. That said, she has a right to her feelings and if it makes her feel better to come over and yell at me, then I owe her that much at least," He rubbed a hand through his curly black hair. "Though I had thought her a trifle unimaginative until I heard her plans for me. Very... creative."

"That's Neveah," Tomoko said dryly.

"Well, I know you'll do your best, Tomoko, but the mob has a mind of its own and you cannot always predict what it will do." He turned to look at Diana, as Tomoko dragged her float palate inside of the TARDIS. "You had a question? Or more likely, a series of questions?"

"No. One. Just one. Why? Well, okay, two: and why me?"

"Why? Because I was between a rock and a hard place. There was a point where I still thought that I could save Susan. I hoped that I could bring her back to life. For that, I needed the Project to be useful to Rassilon, because I needed him to keep funding it. So, I sent you out to do jobs for him and for the Rani, who was his pet scientist at the time. Things that made him see you all as being useful. I'm sorry for what you were forced to do and for what you were forced to see. As to why you in particular? Because you excelled in the training Sims. Of all of the Mashas, you are the most suited for combat, Diana. I'm sorry, but you are in many ways, the perfect warrior."

She turned to look at him appraisingly.

"And now?"

"Now it's up to you to figure out what you want to be or do. It's not my decision any more, which is... nice. Maybe I can unclog pipes on Gallifrey or something, make myself useful.." He shrugged and Diana frowned at him.

"Never tell them." She looked him straight in the eye. "I know Tomoko will figure it out, hell, she's probably already figured it out. But I don't want the others to know. Not even Jake. Not ever."

"I understand, Diana, but I think you do need to tell Jake. Keeping secrets is not a good way to manage a relationship," he told her with a sheepish look. "Trust me on this one."

"Tell Jake what? That I was Rassilon's assassin?"

"That you were Rassilon's assassin and the Rani's 'research archivist', which pretty much boiled down to a probe bot with feelings," he sighed.

"Why? What difference could it possibly make now? All those people are dead, and not like the Loops, they weren't pretend people, or pulled-from-a-moment people. None of them are ever coming back. There are horrors in the world that I am just as happy that Jake never knows about. Or any of them for that matter."

"He's had his own horrors and he will understand, but more than that, it will make you feel better to tell him. You still having the dreams? The crossing wires from the other Mashas?" he asked suddenly.

"Since we found everyone, the crossing wires has almost disappeared, I am not sure why… is it because of proximity? Or because we know about each other now? The rest… I'll always have those, I expect."

"I think the network reset actually cleared the problem up, you lot were getting so wired into each other that it was inevitable, still I'm glad to hear that. Look, you will be talking to a therapist soon, Susan says, so I will let her tell you this also, but talking to someone else is important." He laughed suddenly, a slightly bitter sound. "Agony Aunt, that should be my next profession. Like you need this from me. I'm sorry."

Diana crossed her arms.

"Will you be talking to a therapist?"

"Yes, the same one Koschei goes to regularly," he told her with a rueful smile.

"I meant, other than Susan. I will take that as a no."

"I wasn't talking about Susan," he replied in surprise. "I mean an actual licensed therapist at Torchwood that Koschei sees once a week and that I will be seeing as well. Susan is my... love, not my therapist, and it would be unfair to put that on her as well."

"I think you are being overly optimistic. I think the Torchwood therapists are going to take one look at us and run screaming for the hills."

"They are already providing therapy for the survivors of the Time War, Diana, adults who watched their world burn and children who lost everything. I think you overestimate how much damage you all have, only because you have nothing to measure it against," he told her with a small movement of his shoulders. "You were designed to be mentally stable after all," he smirked.

"Yes, I remember," she said dryly. "Well… I'll see how Tomoko likes her therapist I guess."

"I expect that Tomoko's therapist will put a gun to her head within a week of dealing with her. Tomoko was not designed to be mentally stable," he groaned, looking up at the sky in dismay.

Diana looked very surprised.

"You think she is mentally unstable? She seemed okay to me."

"Diana, I designed her to mimic Adie's brain as closely as possible, while keeping her in an easily controlled physical form. That means that she's an elephant who's been shoved into a shoebox and the shoebox is always on the brink of falling apart!" he explained.

Diana fixed him with a rather unnerving stare.

"Why? Why did you make her like that?"

"Because that's what Rassilon wanted and I didn't care enough anymore to protest. I wanted Susan back and that consumed my mind to the exclusion of all else. Diana, bondmates die when one of them is killed. I was dead, but I was still walking around, bleeding out in excruciating slowness." He rested his head against the TARDIS, his eyes squeezed shut, his face agonized. "I need her and when she's not there, it hurts so damn much."

She thought it over.

"Well you have her now," she mused.

"Yes, and look how nice and sane I am," he pointed out, with a bitter twist to his lips. "All I needed was her next to me and Rassilon dead and everything is so much better!"

"It is. Funny how that works. I'll see you around. We'll talk again." Diana pushed her empty float pallet with her foot, sending it down the hill, and followed.

"I look forward to the occasion with bated breath," he sighed, bowed elegantly, and dragged his float palette inside.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26 - Moving In

Susan looked up from where she was sitting, working out the next iteration of the Nanites Swarm. The green velvet wing chairs had been damaged in the crash, the one she was sitting in still smelled a bit of smoke, but she wasn't about to have the TARDIS waste energy by fashioning new ones, when there were so many critical systems that still had to be repaired.

Rose came in with three of the Mashas and a load of float palettes, much to Susan's surprise.

"Um, hello. More supplies?" she asked.

"Nope, Guinn's moving in, so we brought his stuff," Rose replied, with an expression that Susan couldn't quite figure out.

"This is... sudden," Susan replied, taken off guard.

"Do you not want him?" Kimberley asked. She scowled suddenly, with a slightly suspicious look.

"I do, of course I do! That's not even a question," she assured her, and Kimberley's frown lifted. "I'm just wondering what brought this on."

Rose winced and then explained. As she did so, Susan's expression went from placid to furious.

The shouting was loud and angry. The Mashas looked back and forth and realized that maybe Susan really was as dangerous as the Doctor had said.

* * *

Guinn walked in to see a rather angry ginger, arms crossed, brows lowered.

"I will hang him from the highest tree!" she was shouting. "How dare he just assume like that! The meddling is one thing, but this is completely different!"

"Ah," Tomoko said, "I see he didn't tell you either. I don't believe he told anyone. I expect that was part of some sort of plan, but I'm afraid I am not following that portion of it."

"Oh! It's so completely typical of him!" Susan snapped. "He decides that people need to be managed and he manages them, that's what he does! He thinks we'd be 'better off' some way and that's that! He locked me out of the bloody TARDIS because he thought I would be 'better off' with David!" Tomoko paused, thinking hard.

"I believe that the assessment that the Ma… er, Guinn, would be better off here is a correct one and…" she looked a little hesitant, "You do look as if you loved David very much."

"That's not the important part!" she interrupted. "He made the decision without asking and chucked me out, on a devastated world, with no change of clothes and one bloody shoe!" She glared at Tomoko. "He can be as right as the First Ones and still be wrong to take action without asking anyone, or making sure they agree, or at least giving them a bloody suitcase and some clothes!"

Tomoko considered.

"It violates the principles of the Revolution. Yes, I can see that. I believe that we are bringing over his things, though." She frowned thoughtfully at Guinn.

"You're missing the point, Tomoko, he didn't ask first," Rose pointed out.

"No, I see the point and recognize that what you are saying is correct. However, it is beyond my ability to change." She looked a little sad. "One of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn was to differentiate what is and what is not within my ability to change. As I cannot change it, I must adapt to it. Therefore, we are here."

"I keep hoping that one day, a large enough brick will penetrate his skull and he'll get a clue," Susan muttered and her eyes were brighter than Tomoko's for a brief instant. Guinn was suddenly there, smiling at her and holding her hands.

"Susan, love, it's all right, I'm actually quite pleased about the change, really. It means that I can stay here with you, which is all I ever really wanted anyway," he told her and she looked up at him, melting instantly into gentle sweetness.

"I want that too," she agreed. "I just wish you'd been consulted." She looked at him and her eyes were sad now. "Nine hundred years without a choice about what you could do, or who you could be. I want you to have choices now, not be manipulated by anyone, even Grandfather."

"I think that Theta is beyond salvation in that regard," he chuckled and Rose rolled her eyes.

"That's the truth!" she agreed.

"Regardless, it's kind of you to let me stay," Guinn murmured to her and she looked up at him with a startled look.

"Kind? Nonsense, I want you here, love, it's entirely selfish on my part." She smiled and he couldn't help smiling back at her, even with the circle of watching clones, some of whom seemed rather taken aback by her obvious affection for him.

"Well, I'm selfish enough to be happy about that," he told her and kissed her lightly. She grabbed him and kissed him thoroughly, her body promising wonderful things to him and then she drew back with an impish smile and giggled at the look on Evie's face. She directed them to unload the float palettes in the nearest storage room.

"We'll work on reconfiguring some rooms for you, darling man, then we can move your things in," she told him.

"Two rooms will be all I need," he assured her and she nodded. "Tomoko, thank you for the escort, but Susan has me safely in custody now," he informed her gravely.

Tomoko looked at him, then looked at Susan. Her expression was solemn, but was at least partially for the benefit of any of the clones who might be watching.

"I am turning him over to your custody," she said. "You must take good care of him until we are ready to speak with him."

"Of course," Susan replied, her own voice quiet and somewhat unhappy now. She looked out at the others and her unhappiness grew. "When will that be?"

"It has yet to be decided," Tomoko said, loudly enough for the others to hear. "First the Manifold must be defeated; nothing will be safe until that happens. Then we must find a place to live, establish resources such as food, water, and shelter. It is possible that this may take some considerable time."

Kimberley and Evie looked ambivalent about this.

"Not too long though," Susan replied with a frown. "They all need closure and they won't get it if this gets delayed too long."

"I know," said Tomoko. "Manifold first, a place to live second, and the meeting third."

"Very well. You said he had to come alone? Is that still true? Can Koschei and I come as well?" she asked and her face was hopeful.

"I have noted the request," she said. "Let us think it over. We will give you an answer as soon as I can."

"Well, of course you all have to vote on it, I know that," Susan agreed. "The whole point of the revolution was for you all to be able to make your own choices and that is exactly what needs to happen."

"It will be the first vote that we hold in our new home, once we have it," Tomoko said. Evie smiled at this, and so did Kimberley.

"Very well, that's fair," Susan conceded. "I'm just a bit anxious, I suppose. I've had a lot of experience with those who seek vengeance on their oppressors, you see. It makes me nervous. I know you're all reasonable, rational, and good at heart, but I got dragged off on a tumbrel once to be executed because of a 'revolution', so please forgive my nerves." She smiled apologetically at the Mashas.

"Vengeance and Justice are not the same thing," Tomoko said, loudly enough for the gathering to hear. "We want Justice, not Vengeance."

"You do, Tomoko, but not all of your sisters feel the same way." Susan was frowning a bit as she said this and Tomoko nodded her agreement.

"That's why we will be voting," she said simply.

"Yes, well, we'll see then what future your sisters will choose," she replied and her eyes were somewhat distant as she spoke. "You have a crossroads ahead of you and it will decide all, for good or ill."

"Yes. That is what the Revolution is all about: the ability to decide our own fate. Right now I don't think we know how we will decide. I know I am giving the matter a lot of thought," Tonoko replied.

"Right, who wants tea then?" Susan asked suddenly and smiled at them all.

"With cookies?" Adie said hopefully, walking into the TARDIS just in time to hear the offer.

"Of course!" Susan assured her. "I just made a batch of peanut butter cookies." She looked around at the Mashas and began chivvying them towards the kitchen, promises of baked goods dangled before them.

* * *

Adie waited for them all to clear out, before she walked up to Guinn, who looked back at her in surprise.

"Hello, Adyra," he began, only to be interrupted.

Look," she said, "I'm not going to take it if you really object," she announced and he blinked for a moment before responding.

"Take what? Oh... the TARDIS? No. It's better this way," he replied. "I... I'm better off where they can keep an eye on me."

She stared at him, her expression perplexed.

"Why?"

"So... I... I don't know, so that I don't do anything ...bad." He sounded as though he really hadn't articulated the reasons, even to himself. "Susan will tell me when I'm doing things wrong. Koschei too."

"And what do you think about it?"

"I'm ... grateful," he said so softly that she almost didn't hear it.

"Grateful for what?"

"Grateful... she's alive. That they'll let me stay. I'd have been willing to sleep on the floor somewhere." He sounded bewildered, like he wasn't quite certain how he'd gotten a winning lottery ticket, when he hadn't even been playing.

"You're staying then?"

"Until they send me away, yes. They'll come to their senses at some point, I suppose," he murmured and it was the sound of a dog, often abandoned, who was sure that this home wouldn't take him either.

"But will you want the TARDIS back at that point? Yours, I mean?"

"No. I won't need it then," he replied softly and she stopped and looked at him.

"Because you'll be dead?" she asked simply.

He looked down at her and his eyes were so very sad.

"Most likely," he agreed."I tried, you know. I tried to goad him into killing me. I knew it would stop the Project. He never would though. So many other people, people who didn't deserve it, but not me, never me," he replied, his voice bitter and harsh. "Not his dog, jerking my leash every time he wanted me to obey. He wired me up, you know. Throughout my entire nervous system. Excruciating pain when I disobeyed. Never enough to kill me though."

She was silent for a while.

"I'm familiar with the concept," she said and her voice was low.

"Who do you think ordered that? Wasn't me," he snapped. "I saw no need for it. Wasn't like you were going anywhere and you were hardly a threat to me. Not that he listened, he never did. You were too 'valuable' to risk any sort of rebellion or injury. I was to 'keep you in line' with that. Anything happened to you and he wouldn't ever let me die." He looked at her and then away. "I tried. I did. It never worked. After a while... I guess I stopped trying. I'm sorry for that. I failed at everything."

"Oh, I don't know that I would agree with that. You kept your engineers alive a long time. Kept casualties among the clones… well, relatively minimal."

"I told him I was 'conserving resources'," he muttered bitterly. "I think I even believed it a little back then. Everything was so ... It was so hard to think, to remember. I used to feel like... like Susan wouldn't like something and I'd try to stop. An hour later, I'd realize that I was somewhere else and I had already done it. I couldn't remember what made me change my mind though." He shook his head. "I'm complaining. I'm sorry. You went through enough without having me whinging on."

"I did ask," her tone was even.

"You did. It doesn't matter anymore. I'll stay as long as I can, as long as they'll have me, and then I'll go home, back to my Susan. It's not important." He just stood there staring at the panel and then shook himself back to work.

"What's not important?"

"Me, my pain, my suffering, it's not important. It's only important that I don't make anyone else unhappy. I've done enough harm, don't you think?" He punched in the next code with a frown.

"Koschei says that a lot too," mused Adie.

"He's me," Guinn sighed out. "Only far better."

"Why better?"

"He didn't kill his Susan," he replied and then turned away to work on the next board, shoulders slumped and head down.

"I'm sorry, for what it is worth."

"Why? It wasn't your fault. I blamed you, because I couldn't face my own failure. It was pure cowardice," he told her and rewired a circuit in the panel with deft fingers.

"You were in agony. You lashed out at the nearest target. I always understood that."

"Then you were wiser than I was, because I didn't understand any of it. I still don't. I don't know why she's so damned kind to me, or why he... hasn't shot me." He finished up the work and tripped the switch starting up the board.

"She loves you, and he loves her," Adie said simply.

"Of course he does, he was born to, after all." He laughed with a pained look. "Rassilon had to rub that in, you know. He didn't know that it was me, that I was the one, but he told me all about the destined bondmate, the one the Arkytior creates just for her conduits. One perfect match for each potential. Isn't that dreadfully ironic? I was her perfect match and I killed her." He sighed. "I've got her TARDIS up and running, anyway."

"I see." She looked at him, thoughtfully, wondering what to say, and how much to tell him. "Guinn, after Susan… after she died… how did you go on living?"

"Rather poorly, as you could see. I focused on something, a piece of work, an idea, an invention, and I submerged myself completely into it, so that I wouldn't have to feel how alone I was." His aura went flat and gray and he looked dismally at the console.

"Do you think…" Her eyes seemed clouded. "Do you think that would work for me?" Her cheeks were very pink at having to ask.

"I don't know, Adyra, everyone grieves in their own way. I bury myself in work, I always have." He paused, his mouth working as he tried to find words. "You won't be alone, you know. You will have people around you who care for you. I was hated and despised by everyone, she was the only one who never feared me, never... hated me. Everyone else left me, turned their back on me, you won't have to face that. You'll have the Doctor, Rose, Tomoko, and the rest." He gave her a look that she realized was nearly envious. "You won't be alone."

"I've always been alone," she said simply, "Until very recently. But I… thank you for the advice, I suppose."

"Nonsense, you were almost never alone, if Farian wasn't fussing over you, it was that Supervisor, Marainithren, or one of the other engineers, or programmers. They were constantly after me for being 'mean' to you," he told her. "You had a multitude of very vocal protectors, child. You just never realized it."

Adie now looked genuinely surprised.

"Really? I… I had no idea."

"I didn't imagine that you had," he answered with a shrug. "You never have noticed how much you impact those around you, or how much raw talent you have. I know that I wasn't anything but awful to you, but that was my grief and rage speaking, it had nothing to do with how well you were actually doing."

"I really believed that…" She stopped herself. "I… I know you are changing and have changed and will keep on changing. You're alive again and that is obvious to anyone that looks at you. I guess I'm… still scared? But I'm trying to change too. Just… I don't know how successful I am being right now."

"You have already become a different person, Adie," he told her and there was a great deal of sadness in his face. "I suppose that not having me around as much has helped with that."

"But you are going to be around now. Susan plans to keep you. You watch."

"I am fine with being kept," he admitted. "What I dread is the thought that she might tire of me. She's already got Koschei, has had to fight to heal him. I can't imagine why she's willing to go through that again," he sighed. "But she appears to be, so I will simply be grateful for her forbearance."

"Because she loves you."

"Which baffles me a bit, but again, I simply choose to be grateful for her insanity," he chuckled softly, but she could see that he wasn't joking.

"You have a good life ahead of you now. I think that will be good for all concerned."

"You think that she'll have me dancing to her tune, so that I can't cause any more harm?" he asked and there was a touch of bitterness in his tone. "Perhaps that's the truth."

"Perhaps what's the truth?" Adie said a bit shyly.

"That it takes someone else riding herd on me, to keep me out of trouble," he sighed.

"Oh, I think that could be said about everybody, to some extent," Adie mused. "Look how many people the Doctor has riding herd on him! Yet, he still gets into all sorts of trouble. At least… I think he does. I haven't known him very long."

"Yes, he does," Guinn agreed and gave her a wry look. "Perhaps its a Time Lord thing, we need keepers."

Adie thought this over.

"Maybe we do," she mused. "Maybe we… lost something, you know? All of us? Something that needs someone other than a Time Lord to fill… I don't know, that's all very philosophical and I don't think I am all that philosophical these days. Maybe that is why there are humans. Like, Jake."

"Doctor keeps saying we're rubbish on our own," Koschei informed them, as he crawled out of a ventilation shaft nearby with a spanner in his hands, nearly scaring Adie to death, because she hadn't realized that he was there. "I think he may be right. Whatever it is that gives us near immortality, it detaches us a bit as well. Some of the immediacy of things is lost. I think that's why he always travelled with humans."

"Which doesn't explain Susan," Guinn pointed out and Koschei nodded.

"She wasn't raised on Gallifrey," Koschei reminded him. "She grew up around humans... oh, that great git!" Koschei jumped up and glared at the central console. "That's what he's doing on Gallifrey! Raising them together! Time Lord children and human children, growing up together, just like he did with Susan! That clever, crazy, bastard!"

Guinn stared at him and then suddenly burst out laughing. He was laughing so hard he could barely stand up, clutching the railing to stay upright.

"Wait," Adie said, looking from one to the other, "We're doing what, now?"

"On Gallifrey, this universe's version! You've seen it, Adie, you saw how many humans and other aliens live there now, remember?" Koschei asked his face still filled with a combination of admiration and annoyance.

"Sort of… the Doctor and I walked from Susan's TARDIS to Jake's house, and back again," she said cautiously. "Except for that instance, I've never set foot on the planet." She paused. "I did notice there were a lot of other races about."

"Exactly! The school he set up for all the children, it's got all the races there, all mixed up together, all learning together! He's doing it again!" Koschei sputtered and Guinn finally managed to get himself back under control.

"It's what he does, it's what he's always done," Guinn reminded him and Koschei nodded. "Since the beginning, the Doctor has always tried to guide things towards an ideal image he has in his head. Did you think he was going to stop now?"

"No, of course not, we even discussed it several times, but Susan! That's what I didn't understand. He did though, he did it deliberately! Why has she lived this long? How did he raise her to be stubborn and strong and able to withstand it all, to be damn near human in how she approaches things," Koschei pointed out and Guinn nodded.

Adie was looking doubtfully at them both.

"Did what deliberately? Raised Susan as a human?"

"Away from Gallifrey, surrounded by a thousand different cultures and ideas, open to the concept that there were other ways to be," Koschei expanded on the theme. "Listen, Adie, what happened to the other channels? Have you ever wondered why they burned out? I think it was because they had always been told that that is what happened. They expected to! Maybe, it's not something that has to happen, maybe it's that we were too narrow-minded and we knew too much history!"

"A nice thought, Koschei," Guinn interrupted. "But, not I think completely valid. There are other factors here as well."

"Rassilon." Koschei looked at Adie and his face fell. "Yes, I hadn't thought of that."

"You think that Rassilon…" but she faltered at the look on his face and then looked away.

"We know that he was trying to get the power of the Arkytior before, that he knew all the channels, that he tried to control them. What if it was his meddling that caused them to burn out?" Koschei muttered.

"If he interfered with the bondmates of the channels, that would have rendered them unstable and then..." Guinn trailed off and gave Adie an uncomfortable glance.

Adie was silent for a while.

"Damn Rassilon," she finally said, went over to the toolbox, and rummaged in it.

"I hope his death was particularly painful," Guinn muttered.

"The Doctor saw him die and said it was... unpleasant, so I would say so." Koschei frowned at that. "I had my hands around his throat, I was pouring my life out to kill him and I was so close..."

"What happened?" Guinn asked.

"Susan felt me falling and the power of the Arkytior reached out and saved me." He paused and then turned and looked at Adie. "That's a possibility! When she comes, you can maybe try reaching for him, pulling him to you, maybe that will bring him."

"I can try it," Adie mused. "By the time I am in a position to do so, things will have run so far off the rails that I doubt it could make matters much worse at that point."

"True," Guinn agreed. "This whole situation is already pretty much hopeless, anyway, so you couldn't do much more harm." He gave her a look that was supposed to be supportive, she guessed.

"Um... We need to work on your bedside manner," Koschei sighed.

Adie had turned rather white, but nodded, swallowing hard.

"Can you at least keep the… cosmic real estate in one piece? Do you think?"

"Well, Susan and I were already thinking about how to deal with that and we figured that we would bring you into gestalt right before the firing, okay?" Koschei told her and she nodded.

"That would probably be a good idea," Adie replied.

"Susan will interface with the Arkytior, and I'll anchor you both," Koschei told her with a small smile. "Don't worry, you won't end up married to me," he teased.

Adie looked a little scared for him.

"Can you do that?"

"I don't know, I've never tried before," he admitted. "Adie, there have never been two conduits in existence at the same time before, so this is all experimental. Still, I am the strongest telepath around, so it should go well. Susan and I are more experienced than any other conduit/anchor pairing in history as well, which should help."

She nodded.

"You know, beyond just the obvious… I've worried about the Arkytior having multiple conduits."

"Yes, well, that may actually be less of a problem, really," Guinn told her. "Like a volcano, having multiple vents might actually relieve pressure. If she has several outlets, its possible she might be less... pushy... about the one she has got."

"Or, she has a better chance of pushing too hard and blooey… but I'll hope for the best," she remarked dryly.

"Yes, I think we all should." Koschei looked uneasy and then simply shrugged. "Not much else we can do really."

"Except get back to work," Adie said.

"I shouldn't be chatting, I have a ton of work to do. So do you."

"Which we were doing," Koschei teased and crawled back into the vent.

"Are you all right?" Guinn asked once Koschei had vanished again.

Adie didn't answer him at once.

"I saw what happened to you once Susan died," she said. "I'm going to end up just like that. I'm scared out of my mind. Did I mention, damn Rassilon?" She pulled a sonic from the tool chest.

"You won't end up like me, Adyra. I had seven hundred years of torment before that and a psychological history that would have given Freud nightmares," he told her with a small smile. "You, on the other hand, are the Doctor's niece, you're from the lineage of the Other and that's no small thing."

"Hope not," she said and headed towards the hall. "We're about done here. I'm going to head back to the other TARDIS and deal with those circuits near the Astrosextant Rectifier. See you around, okay?"

Guinn nodded at her as she walked off and then frowned.

"Uh... Adyra?" He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Um... I am sorry about... everything."

Adrya turned and looked at him.

"Why… I…" She swallowed and nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I am too, for whatever that is worth."

He nodded abruptly and put his head down as she turned and left the TARDIS, looking rather nonplussed.

* * *

Koschei bent over the lathe, working out the next piece's design and watching Guinn out of the corner of his eye. Seeing himself from the outside was a bit of a revelation. He wasn't sure exactly how he felt about it all yet, but he did know that he really was starting to care about Guinn, to want to heal and help him as much as Susan did.

"I think that would do it," Guinn said at last.

"I wanted to make another shunt for it, but the nanoassembler is bit low on some of the materials." Koschei looked around the workshop and sighed. "There are more tools I'd like to have, but certain parts just aren't available in this universe," he shrugged. "Can't exactly go shopping for Gallifreyan circuits in a universe where Gallifrey never developed, can I?" he sighed.

"And yet," Guinn snarked, "I'll live with the inconvenience. Shall we, then?"

Koschei bit out a laugh, which surprised him even more than realizing he wasn't all that much different than he had been.

"Might as well," he agreed and went to pull parts from inventory.

"All right," Guinn said at last, "Try that."

Koschei ran the test cycle and nodded.

"Looks good."

Susan came in with a lunch tray, coffee and tea.

"I finished up the work on the Nanites, if someone would come check my maths?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," they both said at the same time. Guinn glowered at him, but then pulled the expression into a mere frown, and gestured.

"After you," he said simply.

Koschei looked up at him and saw the effort he was making and smiled.

"No, I still have to assemble the next set, you help Susan, okay?" he suggested and saw the way she was looking at them both, as if unsure what to say. He didn't want her to feel like she was a bone tossed between two territorial dogs, so he quickly bent his head down and went back to work.

* * *

Guinn scolded himself quietly. This ought to have been Koschei, he needed to be slower to speak next time. But he turned to Susan with a smile.

"Show me the maths." Susan looked up at him and her eyes were full of understanding. She handed him the tablet, but also went up on her toes to kiss him, her mouth warm and sweet on his.

He was surprised by the kiss, his eyes turning away from the tablet and towards her.

"What was that for? Er… not that I object."

"What? I have to have a reason to want to kiss you?" she asked with a laugh.

That made him smile. She always made his hearts feel so warm. Still, she was there for a reason, and so he sat down on the nearest stool and checked the calculations. Susan stood leaning against him, her eyes closing in contentment, and he snaked an arm around her, paging through her numbers with one hand.

"Oh, I see why this isn't working… you just had a moment of dyslexia," he smiled at her. "Here, swap these two digits around… run it now and see if that works any better." She grinned at him and kissed him again.

"Thank you, my brilliant man," she told him and fixed the error. The next run had the solution flash green and she nodded in satisfaction. "Good, that's the last bit for the retrovirus, now the Nanite tank just needs to finish working up."

"We're ahead of schedule," Koschei muttered, sounding pleased.

"Yes, if we can manage not to wreck the sceptre chamber, I think we will be in good shape," Guinn sighed.

"Right, so we can take a break?" Susan asked hopefully.

Guinn looked at Koschei expectantly.

"I don't see why not," he agreed, smiling at Susan, where she stood, still tucked under Guinn's arm.

It took a minute to filter into Guinn's head that he wasn't sending Koschei and Susan off, but was expected to go with them, and scowled. He hadn't planned on taking a break, there was still a great deal of work to do. Nevertheless it was something that Susan wanted, so he stood up and put down his tools.

"So, how are we going to work this?" Koschei mused. "Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, or alternating weekends?" he asked, looking at Guinn.

"Me?" Guinn's eyebrows rose to his forehead. "I was going to let you two sort it out and go along with whatever you decided," he scowled.

"Well, I am not going to be divided up and parcelled out," Susan objected, shaking a finger at Koschei.

"Which is precisely why I was going to go along with whatever decision was made," Guinn repeated, watching her finger nervously.

"Well, love, how do you want to do this?" Koschei asked, giving Guinn an amused look. "Since he is obviously wiser than I am." Susan laughed, head back, joyous and happy.

"I thought it was obvious, I'm keeping you both, all the time!" she informed them.

"For my own curiosity, just how does that work on the… practical side of things?" said Guinn.

"You'll live with us, sleep in our bed, and all that," she explained with a satisfied air.

"All right," Koschei agreed and shrugged.

"If that's okay with you?" Susan asked Guinn, looking worried suddenly.

Guinn didn't say anything immediately. Finally he cleared his throat.

"I don't care, as long as you're happy, I will do whatever you want."

She frowned and looked at Koschei, who smiled sadly.

"Give him time, enthusiasm took awhile for me too," he pointed out and she nodded. "Still, he said yes, so stop frowning," he told her gently and she put her arms around Guinn and held him tightly.

"You're not a beggar at the table, love, you have a right to a seat there," she murmured. "I promised you forever and that is what I have always wanted with you, forever."

He just closed his eyes, drinking in her nearness and her touch.

"Thank you," he said simply.

"It'll take awhile for him to get used to it, Susan, if either of us ever really does. All the waiting, the suffering, the missing you, it takes it's toll, and sometimes just seeing you can break my hearts," Koschei told her, his voice low and filled with so much emotion it was hard to grasp it all.

"It always breaks mine," added Guinn. "Every single time." Koschei nodded his understanding.

"Yes," Susan agreed. "I feel the same way. When I thought you were dead, I just felt empty and hollow, like I wasn't even real anymore, just an automaton that kept working because I had to, but with no real desire to do anything." She buried her face in his neck and her shoulders started to shake. "I'm sorry, so sorry, I should have found a way to get to you somehow. I never should have left you alone."

His own aura went cold and flat and gray at the thought of it, but he shoved this away, and kissed her head tenderly.

"You did find a way to get to me," he told her, gently stroking her hair. "You did everything you ever should have done, or could have done. You were perfect." Murderer, his own thoughts screamed darkly at him.

She snuggled closer to him, almost as if she sensed his self-condemnation.

"I love you, always have, always will," she told him and then looked up at him with entirely wicked smile. "Now, both of you, take me to bed."

"We might do terrible things to you," warned Guinn. "Or, I might do terrible things to you and Koschei both," he growled.

"I have no objections," Koschei chuckled. "But I think we should pool our talents and do absolutely horrible things to her this first time."

"I think I'll find the strength to endure," she assured them.

"I wouldn't be so certain," Guinn growled, stood up, scooped her up into his arms, and carried her off, Koschei following behind. Susan's rather undignified squeak turned into a giggle.

"I think I must be the luckiest person in the universe to have the two of you!" she told them both and she was glowing with happiness.

"Sure, you say that now," growled Guinn.

"And here I thought we were the lucky ones," Koschei murmured and pushed the door open for them, then shut and locked it behind him, before turning to look at Guinn. "Right, shall we see if we can make her beg?" he suggested.

"That's no challenge," she chuckled and Guinn set her on her feet.

Koschei stepped up behind her and ran his hands along her sides, tracing her curves with his fingertips. She shivered and Guinn leaned down to kiss her.

Guinn smirked and she looked up at him with utter trust in her eyes. It shook him for a moment, but then he recalled Koschei's presence and relaxed. The other version of himself wouldn't let him hurt Susan, she was safe, it was okay. He kissed her again, breathing her in, feeling the warmth of her skin, the velvet softness of it and let himself relax completely.

He could feel them both, all of them acting as one being and it was amazing. He was tangled up in both of them, feeling the joy of their union, and eventually they collapsed together onto the bed. Guinn edged down and Koschei moved up, bracketing Susan, cradling her between them.

"Oh my," she murmured sleepily and Koschei grinned at him.

"This could get... interesting," he sighed out and the two of them fell asleep.

Guinn lay beside Susan, watching them both and feeling utterly shattered. Everything he'd ever imagined his future might be, had been completely rewritten, but he'd enjoyed every moment, had been cherished and cared for, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He certainly didn't feel as though he deserved it at all.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27 - Accidental Contact

Adie stepped out into the freezing wind and cold with a sigh. There was nothing that could be done about the waiting, but it was maddening.

There was the sound of engines, and she looked up in surprise. A small airship was patrolling the area and it had obviously spotted her. It came in for a landing nearby and she wondered what would be worse, ducking into a TARDIS and revealing their alien origins, or chatting up the people as they came over. After a heated internal debate, she finally decided that she'd rather not have them searching the area for her.

A bundled figure came crunching through the snow, his face covered against the cold.

"Are you from Granger's Pass?" he called. "Are you one of the survivors?"

"Um. No and… yesssss?" Adie said uncertainly.

"Well, come on with us then, young lady, we'll get you to a shelter!" he told her.

"A what?"

"A shelter! We're gathering the survivors and all the refugees into shelters, there's another gollywhopper of a storm coming!" he shouted over the rising wind.

"Ummmmmm… I'm really okay," Adie stammered, looking more and more like a deer in headlights.

A second figure came up beside the first.

"Storm's getting worse, we need to get back, or we won't be able to fly!" the second bundled figure insisted and grabbed Adie's arm.

"Come on, Miss! Time to go!" the first one told her and took her other arm. "Are there any other survivors around here that need to be picked up?" he asked.

"No!" Adie said far too hastily. "We should… go. Right away. Yes, um, go." She was terrified that the Doctor or someone would come out and get into trouble.

"Right!" the second one agreed and they hustled her into the aircraft. A pilot looked back and Adie was directed to sit between a family that was huddling together, looking shell shocked, and a pair of crying children.

The craft lifted off and headed for the city, with the refugees and one rather nervous Time Lord.

* * *

"Doctor," Rose called out to him and he came over to look at where she was pointing to something on the screen.

"What?"

"Adie just got on a helicopter with some EMTs," she told him and he stared at the screen with his mouth dropping open.

"What? Why?" he asked and Rose gave him a look.

"How am I supposed to know? Maybe they invited her for tea!" she snapped.

"Where are they headed?"

"To the city," she replied.

"Tomoko! I'm going for a stroll, hold down the fort, will you!" he shouted down the hallway.

There was a brief silence.

"You are not going for a stroll in an oncoming blizzard! What happened?" From the sound of the footsteps down the corridor, Tomoko was heading his way fast.

"Well, we seem to have temporarily misplaced Adie," the Doctor muttered.

"What? How? What happened?"

"She got on a helicopter and flew away!" the Doctor replied, grabbing his coat and a parka to go over it.

"The Manifold broke through the Loop before they finished destroying the city," Tomoko grabbed her own coat, a jacket much lighter than the Doctor's. "There's patrols all over the place hunting for survivors, Adie probably ran into one."

"Yes, I can see that, Tomoko," he snarked. "The real question is why? Why did she go with them, instead of saying, 'never mind me, save the children, I can walk'!" He wrapped a scarf around his neck and pulled on gloves, while Tomoko gave him a look.

"Because it's Adie! A total stranger said something to her, and of course, she panicked and froze! Come on now, Doctor."

"Yes, but why couldn't she have panicked and froze at a more convenient moment!" He opened the door and stepped out. "Like not when a howling blizzard was heading this way!"

Tomoko was right on his heels, and closed the door behind them.

"Doctor, how long have you travelled now? When, precisely, have you ever experienced something like this happening at a time that was convenient?"

"Right, Rule number one, Tomoko: No wandering off!" the Doctor barked at her and started striding through the snow. "Rule number two: Do what I say, if you please. I've been doing this a really long time and I do actually know what I'm doing, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding."

"Nonsense. You wouldn't have lived to a ripe old age if you weren't good. And here, take this and put it on." She thrust a sort of bracelet at him.

"In case we get separated?" he asked. "Or do you just like putting jewellery on people for no real reason?"

"I ought to tell you it is the latter, but yes, in case we get separated. No point having a 'no wandering off' rule without something to back it up. Following you, Doctor."

"I really miss my psychic paper," he grumbled and stormed off towards the city, with his brow furrowed. "Made so many things easier."

"The city is a ways, do we want to walk it, or would it be better to ride?" She called to him.

"There are patrols all over, I very much doubt we'll be walking much longer. They'll scoop us up with the other refugees and then we'll find Adie," he replied.

"May I suggest we hasten the process?" Tomoko fixed an earpiece in her ear.

"Don't do anything out of place for this tech base, Tomoko, you already stick out, they'll think we're with the bugs if we're not careful." He frowned.

"Good point, I have been working on this. Give me a moment." Tomoko exhaled slowly, concentrating, as her temperature spiked suddenly. The bio-luminescence in her eyes brightened and then dimmed significantly. "Phoo, that's tough."

"Neat trick, what about the skin tone?" he asked. "It's amazing how many times I have shown up somewhere to save everyone and they have assumed I was a bad person, it's unbelievable!" He said the last bit almost as through he was speaking to himself, so Tomoko ignored it.

"Give me a second… it's tricky…" Standing next to Tomoko was like standing next to an open fire. After several minutes her skin appeared significantly less green. She looked much more normal than she had before. "The slug can do a lot more than we have done with it," she panted. "But it's… very tricky work. I'll have to redo it in an hour or two… is it any better?" She looked terribly pale, but within approximate human norms.

"You look just like Adie, if a trifle seasick," he told her. "Not bad at all!" She grinned at him.

"Good old slug." She turned on the earpiece, set it to the correct frequency, and fiddled with it to give a bit of static.

"Hello?" She called into it. "Can anyone hear me? Testing channel one-two."

"We hear you, where are you?" replied a female voice on the other end.

"We got someone!" Tomoko told the Doctor, trying to sound like an excited survivor. "Hello, we're about fifteen clicks out I think, two survivors, we don't have exact coordinates, can you hone in on my signal? We'll try to get to the top of the hill so you can see us!"

"No problem, we're on it! Someone should be there soon!" the voice assured her and few minutes later a helicopter appeared and set down near them.

"There they are," Tomoko muttered.

"Great! Act grateful, try to cry a little bit, if you can." he instructed, grinning wildly. Tomoko looked at him.

"I don't know how to cry," she said solemnly. "Perhaps shock would be better.'

"Hmm, yes, it would explain the paleness, good idea," he agreed and hurried towards the helicopter.

* * *

"He's gone where with who?" Susan asked Rose over the communications screen.

"He's gone to the city with Tomoko, Adie got onto a helicopter and that's where they were headed.

"Oh bugger," Susan sighed out.

"I would have gone too, but someone has to keep working over here, not to mention keep the Mashas out of trouble," Rose grumbled.

"I see." She turned and looked at her husbands with a sigh. "Shall we draw straws?" she asked and Koschei and Guinn looked at each other and then at her.

"I say that we stay here, where it's warm, and let the Doctor call us when he needs to be picked up," Koschei suggested.

"How will we know when he needs to be picked up?" Guinn asked.

"That's the simple bit, just wait for something to explode," Susan explained.

"Right, of course," Guinn agreed.

* * *

Tomoko let the nice young EMT help her onto the helicopter and tried not to look like she could have carried him and probably the whole helicopter if she had a mind to. The Doctor did helpless rather well, she noted.

"Your pulse is thready," proclaimed the EMT, "And you're very feverish. Don't worry, we'll take good care of you."

Tomoko waved this off.

"I'm fine," she slurred, having given her system an extra jolt just to make sure that the words slurred properly. "Lots of people worse off than I am… see to them, I'm okay."

He nodded and went to work on an elderly couple sitting nearby, while the Doctor slumped dejectedly against the wall, then looked up at her with a mischievous grin.

"Come here, niece," he called and when she sat beside him he tucked an arm around her. "We'll comfort each other in our terrible loss."

"How are you holding up, Uncle Theta?" Tomoko responded, while looking around the helicopter at the other survivors.

"I'm fine, just worried about your sister, that's all," he assured her. "Does anyone know if another girl was picked up around here?" he asked.

"Not by this ship," the pilot called back. "You may be able to find her when we land at Refugee Camp Four, that's the closest, she was likely taken there."

"Thank you so much, we've been frantic," he told the young man with a mournful look. "Right, we will hopefully find her there, if not, there will be someone in charge we can chat up."

"I hope you find your poor niece, sir," the elderly woman told him with a sad look. "I have been looking for..." she trailed off and looked confused. "For... there was someone... I know there was."

"Sorry, sir, miss, the wife gets muzzy about things sometimes," her husband said with a gentle pat on her hand.

"Temporal slippage, memories left over from her original timeline," the Doctor whispered to Tomoko. "Not to worry, what with all that happened, we're all a bit turned about," he replied to the wispy haired elder. Tomoko looked uncertain.

"Why don't I experience temporal slippage?" she asked the Doctor.

"You're Gallifreyan," he whispered. "Your mind is already set to receive the correct temporal information, you can't be confused by timeline changes. If you were full Time Lord, you could surf the temporal flow and perceive each change as it happens, but even so, you're immune to the Möbius Loop's influence."

"Hm, noted," murmured Tomoko. "That must be it."

"Well, that and you weren't brainwashed by the creators of the Loops to believe that this was home. Here, watch this." He turned and looked at the elderly woman. "Were you born here?" he asked and she looked at him, mouth working.

"Yes," she said, but her head shook 'no' at the same time. "I was born... somewhere near here," she told him, but she looked as though she didn't believe what she was saying.

"Now, love, you know we were born in the city," her husband reminded her gently and she nodded, looking relieved.

"Can you remember the name of it?" Tomoko asked curiously. "The colony? The city?"

"Of course, this is the Colony and that is the City," he husband snapped. "Leave her be, she's not well!" he looked angry now and the Doctor shook his head warningly.

"Sorry, didn't mean to disturb you," he replied. "Don't Tomoko, they'll not be able to deal with it."

"I'm sorry," added Tomoko and looked at her hands, as if ashamed of herself.

"They aren't exactly real, you see," he whispered. "They're fragments of a life, pieces of memory, if you will, but they've been programmed to react in a way that will allow for realistic weapons testing, that's all. They're living crash dummies. Push them too far and they could suffer mental collapse."

"I just hoped we could find it when we got out, that's all."

"Setarius is the name of the planet, the year is 3756, or that was the year that a great cataclysm wiped out the colony, anyway. Nothing to do with the Manifold, actually, tectonic activity did it," he explained.

"So… these people are being used for weapons testing for the Manifold, and then they get dumped into a volcano?"

"Did you think that Rassilon was a kind, gentle, humanitarian soul who loved kittens and knitting?" he asked with a dry tone. "Yes, but I have every intention of taking the TARDIS to Setarius once we're out of the Loop and rescuing them all. They've suffered enough, don't you think?"

Tomoko looked at him very seriously.

"I want in," she said simply.

"Wouldn't dream of doing it without you, my dear niece," he assured her with a smile.

* * *

Evie looked at Sophie, who frowned at the decking.

"By themselves?" she asked.

"Who's by themselves?" Diana asked and they told her.

"Wait, they're having fun without us?" Jake asked with a look of horror.

Diana was frowning. She pulled her tablet from its case and flipped it. Tomoko construct's face still showed up on the screen.

"Can you explain what your other self is doing off with the Doctor, and didn't even invite anyone?"

"Accessing logs…. Effecting a rescue of Adyra-2," she explained.

"Oh I definitely want to be in on a rescue, grab your stuff, Jake-77."

"Already on it, Angel," he replied and went running to grab his gear.

"Negative," protested Tomoko Construct. "Your orders are to wait here. A dead man's timer is in effect. You will be called in to active duty should the dead man's timer expire without word."

"Yeah, I never liked those things," Jake replied, still putting on his coat and hitching Bella Morte over his shoulder in her weather-proof case. "I'm going for a walk, anyone else want to come?"

"I'm coming," Diana was already set up, having grabbed her things as quickly as he had.

A dozen hands went up and pretty soon they had about two dozen Mashas gearing up and heading out the door.

"Hey!" Rose cried. "Where are you going?"

"For a walk," Jake answered innocently.

"In a blizzard?" she asked dubiously.

"It's good training!" he assured her and darted out the door.

"Jake!" she shouted after him. "Jake! Come back here right now!"

* * *

The helicopter landed just outside the city, next to a large hangar.

"This way, please, shelter is waiting for you," the EMT told them with a smile.

"Come on, Uncle Theta," said Tomoko and deferentially helped the Doctor out of the helicopter.

"Don't overdo it," he chuckled. "I'm not exactly doddering just yet."

Tomoko looked taken aback at the number of people in the hanger when they entered.

"This is more than I was expecting," she said.

"We've managed to rescue quite a few from outlying areas," assured the EMT, with a pleased expression.

"I… um… wow," Tomoko mumbled.

"Yes, let's find your sister quickly, shall we, I am so worried about her," the Doctor said meaningfully and nudged her forward, away from the EMT.

The Hangar was built rather solidly, but most everything on the planet was. Stone work at the bottom and then iron trusses stretching across above them, supporting a roof made of duracrete. Several long tables had food, water, blankets, toys, and other necessities. Along the back wall were portable bathrooms. The whole place was well planned out for a long period of occupation. Cots were stacked along another wall and people were sitting, standing, or talking idly with each other in clusters.

"Do you see her?" She paused. "And can't you do that Time Lord thing? You know…" She put her hands on her forehead and wiggled her fingers while looking at him meaningfully.

The Doctor stared at her.

"You need a forehead massage?" he asked.

"No, I was just thinking about telepathy," she looked at him.

/Adie?/ he called, rolling his eyes at Tomoko.

/Doctor? Doctor! Oh I am so glad to hear you! I've been calling and calling, but I think they flew me out of range./

/Rather a bit, yes. Are you in the Hangar?/ he asked.

/Yes, oh no, are you here too? They picked me up, I've been trying to sneak out. I was hoping to discover some previously-unknown talent, but… I'm really not very good at sneaking, Doctor,/ she sounded almost ashamed of herself.

"Yes, she's that a way," he replied to Tomoko and headed towards where Adie was. "She says she's no good at sneaking. Think we can teach her a few things?"

"Perhaps," Tomoko smirked. "There… no, there… isn't that her?" The hanger was a solid mass of people and it was very difficult to move.

"Yes," he replied, using his elbows to great effect to clear a path to her. "Adie!" he called and waved.

"Doctor! Tomoko!" Adie waved, and began trying to manoeuvre her way through the crowd towards them.

A loud thump hit the roof, the blizzard was hitting them, Tomoko realized, but the sound set off a panic amongst the refugees.

"The Bugs are back!" one woman screamed and in an instant the whole place was a seething mass of humanity, trampling past each other in a sudden spasm of terror.

"No, it's just a storm," Tomoko tried to say, but was hit by the mass and swept aside, her hand torn right out of the Doctor's. She really had no way to change course without resorting to lethal force.

"Stop this right now!" the Doctor shouted, standing up on one of the tables, his voice loud enough to be heard over the panicked voices. "The storm has hit, that's all! The Bugs are gone! Now, you there, get those children to a medic, you, over there, help those elderly people back up, you! Yes, you! Get those heaters set up and you lot, start getting some food going!" he ordered and magically people just sort of nodded and obeyed.

"Nicely done, Doctor," Tomoko was trying to weave back towards him through the horde.

"The voice of someone who sounds like they are in charge and knows what they are doing is very soothing to the human psyche," he replied and started helping people queue up for the food.

"Doctor, I'm so sorry," it was Adie that reached him first, by virtue of where she had been in the crowd when it had panicked.

"Now, now, my dear niece, I was merely worried about you, that's all," he replied and hugged her. "We'll wait a bit, then slip out, not to worry. Worse comes to worst and I can bluster a bit."

"Bluster quick," Tomoko said grimly. "It seems the rescue party is on its way," she tapped her earphone significantly. "I'll skin the lot of 'em when I get back, I specifically set up a dead man's timer!"

"Maybe you should have called it something else," he suggested. "Like say, a party fun time starter timer, eh?"

"I told them to stay put," grumbled Tomoko ferociously.

"Yes, I have noticed how terribly well they obey orders," the Doctor snarked, his lips pursed.

"This isn't funny, the humans will take one look at them and open fire."

"Yes, can't you see how hard I'm laughing," he snapped, his head moving as he looked around the room with a frown. "Be quiet so I can plan, please."

Tomoko fell silent. Both girls looked at him expectantly. Because of Tomoko's earlier alterations, they looked like nothing so much as identical twins.

The Doctor swept the area with all his senses alert and spotted the man with the clipboard with a small smile starting on his face.

He made his way briskly to the clipboard carrying fellow and frowned at him.

"Well?" he demanded.

"Uh?" the dark haired human sputtered.

"Aren't you going to show me the ropes?" the Doctor asked, his face haughty and impatient.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Fine, I'll figure it out for myself," he grumbled and took the clipboard with a sigh, flipping through it with a frown.

"Wait! What?" the man asked, confused.

"We're short several loads of food," the Doctor pointed out, his finger on the line of text, so it couldn't be properly seen.

"Oh... Uh... I'm sure it will show up soon!" he tried to say, but the Doctor merely gave him a withering look and stormed off, clipboard in hand, to the door guard.

"Halt!" he demanded. "No exits until..." he began, but the Doctor interrupted impatiently.

"Until what? Until we starve?" He demanded. "We are short two loads of food!" He waved the clipboard under the guard's nose and then gestured Adie and Tomoko out the door. "I will be back with them soon," he informed the flustered guard and stomped out into the snow and Adie and Tomoko hastened to follow.

"Well done, Doctor," Tomoko chuckled.

"It's all in the bluster my dear, always sound like you're in charge," he explained with a wink and tossed the clipboard aside, as they headed out into the night. "Did I ever tell you about my old friend the Brigadier?" he asked. "Well, that man could wither you dead with a glance, brilliant!"

The three of them stepped through the gates and off into the snow, chatting as they went.

* * *

"Nothing is blowing up!" Guinn muttered fretfully.

"He must have talked his way out," Koschei sighed.

"Well, where's the fun in that?" Guinn complained.

"How dreadfully dull," Koschei agreed.

They both turned, at the soft tapping sound, to see Susan standing nearby, her foot rising and falling like a metronome. They exchanged glances.

"So glad he got away safely," Koschei corrected.

"Without any casualties, that's delightful," Guinn added.

Susan sighed deeply and shook her head at them.

"You two," she grumbled "Come along, tea's ready."

With smothered amusement, the two versions of Koschei followed their wife in to tea, being careful not to look at each other, in case they started chuckling and couldn't stop.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28 - Someone to Watch Over Me

Rose looked up as the Mashas and Jake came in, Tomoko haranguing them the whole way.

"We're very sorry, we were just worried!" Jake assured her.

"Worried or not, I had that Dead Man's timer for a reason! Do you realize what would have happened if the humans had caught a glimpse of us? They likely would have thought we were bug bitten and opened fire!"

"All they would have seen was a bunch of people in parkas," Jake told her. "Everyone was bundled up against the cold, wearing goggles even."

Tomoko grumbled. "You still could have gotten yourselves hurt or killed."

"By their weapons?" Jake asked in surprise. "They couldn't kill even one of the Amazons and most of them had armour on under the parkas. We're not stupid, you know, we've been doing this for two years now, we're good at it."

"I was thinking of you, you know," Tomoko turned and looked at him suddenly. "You're not the only good sniper in the world, and you don't have a healing factor." Her scowl growing deeper.

"No, but I do have armour on as well," he pointed out and unzipped his parka to show her. "Besides, that is a fully armed and fortified city you were heading into, alone, without back-up!"

"If anything ever happened to you, it would be the end of the Revolution," Tomoko told him. "Diana would never forgive me. Neither would anyone else.

"Diana went with us!" he reminded her. "We all went to get you, who by the way, went alone, with no back-up! Into a military situation with hostages!" he added, pointing at Adie.

"I was partnering with the Doctor for the run," Tomoko pointed out.

"Who has an excellent track record for getting people killed!" he told her and then looked at the Doctor. "No offence, of course."

"Oh no, none taken," the Doctor assured him, grabbed up a bag of popcorn, and sat down with his feet up to watch.

Tomoko looked a bit taken aback.

"I explained what I was doing to Tomoko Construct."

"But you didn't tell us," he replied with a sigh. "We were worried and you went off without telling us." Tomoko blinked.

"I… didn't factor that in," she admitted. "I… didn't expect you to be worried." She sounded almost surprised at herself for saying it.

"That's okay, Tomoko," Jake told her and patted her on the shoulder. "You're still getting used to this group stuff." He headed out of the room. "Just tell us next time."

"Yes please," Evie added with a small worried smile. "You're our leader, after all."

"Er… yes. Noted. An error on my part. It will not happen again."

"Pity, cause that was fun," the Doctor told her with a grin. "I like having nieces!"

"Perhaps," Tomoko said thoughtfully, "We also like having you."

He smiled broadly at her, eyes lighting up.

"Family is rather nice, isn't it, even with all the bother of not worrying folks, eh?"

"I have never had anyone to worry before," she said. "I ought to have realized…" She shook her head. "Strange."

"What is?" Rose asked her gently.

"I didn't expect them to feel anything about me, either positive or negative, and I should have. That was an oversight on my part. An obvious oversight, I might add. I am surprised at myself."

"Why?" the Doctor asked. "Did you ever have friends before?"

Tomoko shook her head.

"No," she said simply. "Interpersonal relations are… complex, and I struggle with them often."

"Then don't be so hard on yourself," Rose suggested. "The Doctor has been doing this a lot longer and he's still rubbish at leaving a note." She grinned at the Doctor who looked up at her with a rather chagrined look.

"True," he replied and laughed lightly.

* * *

The Doctor waited a while before walking over to Susan's TARDIS. He wanted them to have plenty of time to work things out between them, but he also had some things he needed to know as well. He jabbed the bell and waited.

Guinn opened the door and peered out at him.

"'Ello!" he called and Guinn's eyes widened.

"Doctor?" he asked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Me? Oh, long story! The Sycorax cut off my hand, Jack carried it around for a while in a preserving fluid, which disturbs me a great deal, by the way, I mean, where the hell do you keep a severed hand? The refrigerator? Then, the Daleks were destroying the universe, shot me, and I siphoned my regeneration energy off into the handy matching bio-receptacle, I love that pun! My friend Donna Noble, nice human girl. She touched the container while the TARDIS shields were down completely and accidently set off a Human/Time Lord Biological Meta-Crises! That's where I come in. I grew out of the hand with both the Doctor and Donna's bits in me and then I killed all the Daleks. The Prime Doctor got a bit shirty about that and dropped me off in a parallel universe with the human girl we were both in love with. Then, Susan showed up and with the bio-data from Malla and Rand, who'd gone through the Chameleon Arch, but died before opening their watches, she turned myself and my wife into full Time Lords. It worked on me because I was already mostly Time Lord and on Rose, because she'd become an Avatar of the Vortex, when she merged with the coral in my TARDIS, so she could save me from the Dalek Emperor," he told him with a cheerful air. "Yeah, it's been a bit busy, really."

Guinn sighed deeply.

"I meant, here at this TARDIS. I thought you were still working on the other one," he growled through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I ran over to have a chat, of course," he replied with a manic grin that reminded Guinn all too much of his fourth regeneration.

"No, you came over to see if I was still mad at you," Guinn sighed and the Doctor shrugged.

"Pretty much," he agreed and Guinn stepped aside, letting him into the TARDIS.

"No, I'm not mad at you, this works fine, actually," he admitted.

"So! Things going well with Koschei and Susan then? I'm glad to hear that!" He clapped his hands together and looked, to Guinn's view, rather indecently pleased.

"So, Rose really was born a human?" he asked next and the Doctor nodded. "How long have you two been married?"

"Nearly ten years now and we've got two children," he said pulling out a picture cube and displaying their images to Guinn. "You'll meet them on Gallifrey," he assured him.

Guinn couldn't help but smile at the picture cube, looking much more like Koschei at that instant. Then he shook it off.

"I probably will, your wife was rather insistent about that," he admitted and the Doctor nodded.

"She likes Koschei and Susan, so of course she'd want things to go well for you," the Doctor replied.

"Yes, well Susan is rather easy to care about."

"Ah." The Doctor replied, looking sad. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault. You didn't blow up my future. I did that all by myself."

"No, I just blew up the planet," the Doctor sighed out. "I ended the War, by destroying everything in the Time Lock, the Daleks, Gallifrey, everything."

"I know. You didn't have any more choice in the matter than I did, when it comes down to it."

"Doesn't change anything though, does it?" the Doctor retorted. "Doesn't take away the nightmares, or the grief, or the constant nagging doubt that there must have been another way. No, it changes nothing. We both still live with our failures, trying to pretend that we weren't destroyed by them."

"All true," agreed Guinn, "All perfectly true." He was silent for a while. "The truth is that I… have no idea how long I will be staying. There's nothing I bring to the table that Koschei hasn't already brought. I'm a… I don't know, duplicate, I suppose. If Susan is in the room than it seems like I am all right, and when she's not…" He shrugged expressively. "Then I just don't know. I suppose you're right, I'm not going to use the TARDIS for anything, I suppose I was just saving it in case she sent me away." His dark eyes were thoughtful.

"Nothing wrong with being a duplicate, you know. That's what I am, after all, but I'm also me, not the same person. You're rather like Koschei, but you're also not. You're more honest than he is, for one thing. He refused to admit how damn shattered he was for a long time. He also isn't always there for her. Not that he doesn't want to be, he does, but he's got a lot of responsibilities. Susan forgets to eat, forgets to sleep, forgets to stop working long enough to take care of her own needs. Koschei tries, but he's got a dozen projects to take care of and he gets busy. I'm actually rather relieved they found you, because she's going to really need you. She needs a keeper, really and truly, and I'd like to be able to count on you for that," the Doctor told him, his brown eyes watching the dark haired man with concern. "She needs you, Guinn."

"As a butler slash housemaid? I can do that." He shrugged. "I don't build any more, don't really plan much any more. I can take care of them both, that's easily done."

"You know full well that's not what I meant!" the Doctor sighed. "She needs you to love and care for her and since that comes to you rather naturally, I think you'll do well. Butler? Please, you'd make a dreadful butler, too cheeky by half!" he snorted and Guinn smiled at that.

"Maybe. Do well…?" He shook his head. "I stopped believing that a long time ago. But I can do what needs doing."

"That's all any of us can do," the Doctor agreed and then nodded abruptly and headed back out into the snow. Guinn watched him walking away into the gathering dusk, long brown coat floating out behind him, his trainers crunching through the snow and he wondered how many people the Doctor really had to talk to.

Maybe Susan and Koschei weren't the only ones that needed to be taken care of.

* * *

Adie was standing in the middle of the console room of her TARDIS and was feeling overwhelmed, terrified, and joyful all at the same time. Her own TARDIS, really and truly hers. Something that no one could take away from her, a home of her own.

Now, if she could just get it repaired.

"The repairs are going well," Tomoko said as she walked into the room.

"Surprisingly well," murmured Adie. "I hope that she likes them."

"I wasn't aware that these ships were… sentient."

"Oh they are," Adie assured her. "I know that Susan can speak to her TARDIS quite well, but I don't know if this one can hear me yet, it was only just updated."

"Are you all right?" Tomoko asked her with a considering look.

"Yes, of course I am," she blushed. "I just… that man talked to me and I froze. I always do that! I try not to, but I do."

"Were you afraid of him?"

"No. Well… he was talking to me!"

"And you were afraid to answer?"

"No. Yes! No… well… sort of."

"What were you afraid of?"

Adie stared at Tomoko like she had never seen her before.

"I… I don't know."

"When you can find what it is that you are afraid of… you won't be afraid any more. That will be the time when you do not freeze up, when speaking to people whom you have never met." She nodded pleasantly, and left the room again, leaving Adie in her wake, holding her forgotten sonic and looking almost stunned at her words.

* * *

The Doctor was pondering. This was made difficult by the fact that his wife was cuddled against him doing maths. The sight of her always made his hearts sing, but it was worse when she had that look of abstracted concentration on her face. The way her brows would knit and her tongue would run along her lip in thought, made him want to kiss her senseless.

Sadly, he really needed her to finish the equation she was working on.

"How's this going to work?" Rose asked suddenly and he could see that it had been bothering her for some time.

"What?" he asked. "The three of them?" She nodded and he chuckled. "You're thinking like a human, Rose. Time Lords aren't like that. The Corsair had five husbands, twenty-seven wives, and more lovers than he could count. Three of his wives weren't even humanoid." Rose stared up at him, eyes wide. "In fact, I seem to recall that he once married a house plant."

"Excuse me?"

"Look, you remember Jack, how causal and blasé he was about all that sort of thing?"the Doctor prompted and she nodded.

"Well, imagine a society where people live thousands of years, can change gender, race, or colour, with every regeneration, where the only real rule is to be polite and mind your own business, and where as long as everyone is mature biologically and consenting, no one cares what you get up to." He sat back and watched as she consulted Malla as well. Her eyes went even wider.

"Seriously? Your whole race was full of..." she trailed off.

"...Very old, very bored people, with nothing but time and imagination on their hands," he finished for her.

"Wow." She eyed him speculatively. "You naughty thing, I had no idea!" the Doctor laughed. "Still doesn't answer how Mr. Possessive is going to handle sharing his favourite toy!" Rose pointed out.

"Well, in their favour, he only has to share her with himself," he reminded her and she gave him a dubious look. "The one thing that he understands, Rose, is how much it hurts to be without her."

She nodded and looked thoughtful, looking down at her notebook.

"I think I've got this sussed, but I don't know quite what it all means. I can see the way the Artron energy will configure itself, that part is dead easy, and yeah, it'll call the Arkytior, but there is a variable missing. Right here, see?" she told him, pointing to a line of figures.

"Yes, I do." He frowned. "It's like there is another energy source that is supposed to be plugged in here," he murmured. "A really powerful energy."

"Yeah, but why here?" she asked. "Won't it block the signal?"

The Doctor stared at the numbers and felt like his hearts were turning to stone.

"Oh, Rose, I see it. I do. It's horrible. He wasn't just going to trigger her, he was going to plug himself into the circuit, become the anchor for her." He was gasping, wondering how in hell that crazy monster had thought he could do it, it made no sense.

"But, isn't that like what Koschei does for Susan?" she asked.

"Yes." He stared at the numbers and felt it fall into place in his head. "That's how She plans it. She seeds them all out there, playing the odds, making little pairs of probability vectors and seeing who catches fire." Rose looked at him, still confused. "But how did he figure it out? Well, he must have, maybe from watching it for so long? Who knows, not important, the important bit is where is he, is he even still alive, and if he's dead, what then? Will it flare up, or burn out?"

"Doctor!" Rose snapped and he looked at her.

"A bond mate, she must have one out there somewhere and Rassilon obviously knew how important it was. He must have located him first, in order to analyse the energy properly. If your maths are as brilliant as always, this Lens will most certainly activate their bond." She stared at him now in horror and dismay.

"Oh bugger!" she gasped and he nodded.

* * *

Even with the TARDIS up and running, there were a lot of tasks left to be done. The Self-repair modules would get to them all eventually, but there was so much damage that it would take ages to finish with it all.

Guinn had gone down the list and selected one that involved several hours in a maintenance vent, gathered all of his tools, and had crawled inside. He was glad of the work: it gave his hands something to do and it gave him some space to reflect.

The Doctor had forced him to make a decision about a future that he'd been avoiding thinking about. As usual, the Doctor was way ahead of all of them. It was bloody annoying sometimes. Guinn didn't feel that he was quite ready to stop grieving and to move on and yet, that was exactly what Theta was demanding that he do. His cockney wife, with her big heart and wide smile had completed the rout. She'd made it clear that he was going to have to start functioning as a person again, if he was going to keep his promises to Koschei.

However, as much as he wanted nothing more than to live with Susan and Koschei and be happy, he could never bear to forget his own Susan. He wondered if that made him unfaithful to Koschei's Susan.

"Love?" Susan's voice drifted down to him where he was working. "We've done configuring the rooms. Your things can be moved in any time."

He crawled out of the hatch, took her hands, and kissed them. She slipped her hands free and tugged the front of his shirt, pulling him down into a searing kiss.

He clutched her to himself. He couldn't understand why she was so generous to him.

"There was no need to make me rooms," he told her. He'd have been content with sleeping on the floor outside her door, if that made her happy.

"Don't be silly!" she scolded gently. "Koschei thinks you might get overwhelmed sometimes and need to hide out for a bit. He thinks that you will need privacy. He pointed out how long you were alone, how hard it must have been, and that you still needed to mourn me...the other me, I mean. He's a clever fellow and he knows you well." She smiled up at him.

"Very clever indeed." He kissed her head and tried very hard to just be grateful and not think of all the reason why his hearts were so conflicted.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29 - Mad Love

Tomoko paced around the room as Diana spoke.

"I don't know what to do," Diana finally said. "Zoi and those of us like her would do better in a civilized society. But Neveah? It'll be years before she is ready for civilization. And I have no idea what we are going to with Moira or some of the others.

"Damn it all," Tomoko paced around the room, rubbing her forehead, then turned to Jake. "What is your evaluation of all of this?

"That you're going to need a horde of therapists," he sighed. "Moira-3 is barely sane most days, Devorah-4 can't function outside of a wartime footing, Maureen-65 is several cards short of a full deck, Nikki-69 is holding it together, but just barely. Honestly, once they are somewhere safe, I expect that they will all fall apart completely."

Tomoko closed her eyes, thinking.

"Can you put together a… a list? Of the people that need the most help?"

"Yeah, start at 3 and work your way down," Jake grumbled.

"But, skip 37," Diana added.

"No, don't skip 37," Jake frowned. "You need help too. All the crap you've gone through?" He shook his head. "You're reckless and self-destructive most days, its the way you express your anger and sense of betrayal."

"But," Diana looked almost bewildered, "Ever since I found you… I've been happy."

"Which doesn't negate all the trauma you went through! You think that being happy with me is going to cure all the damage? No, sweetheart, it doesn't work that way. You all need to sit down and work through all this, really come to terms with it all. You've had hundreds of years of systematic abuse, trauma, and been stuck in highly stressful situations all that time. That doesn't just go away!"

"But…" Diana said, and looked very doubtful.

"Yes, point taken," said Tomoko.

"Hey!" said Diana.

"Don't 'hey' me, he's quite right," Tomoko said.

Diana grumbled but desisted.

"All right, so, need to find about eighty therapists, how hard can it be," Tomoko sighed.

"I'm looking at you too, Tomoko," Jake muttered.

"I realize that and I appreciate the sentiment. However, I am not in a position to indulge in therapy for myself until some sort of options have been secured for the rest."

"Indulge?" Jake asked, eyebrow rising. "Yeah, that's exactly what I am talking about. None of you has the slightest grasp of the most basic elements of self-care!" He shook his head. "Therapy is a necessity for all of you, not an indulgence, and you can spare an hour a week to bloody well take care of yourself!"

"An hour with whom?" Tomoko countered. "I'm not saying that I don't need therapy or that I wouldn't go. I am saying that until I am certain we have the resources nailed down for the others, I wouldn't feel comfortable going. Once we have people lined up… then yes, it would probably be a good idea."

"Some of the Torchwood shrinks, or the UNIT ones, we have a whole slew of them on Gallifrey for the War Orphans and the other Time Lords, who are all pretty traumatized as well," Jake explained. "First rule of leadership though, Tomoko, 'Put your own mask on first, before helping others on with theirs'," he quoted with a sigh. "If you're not holding it together, you can't help anyone else."

"Ultimately correct," she agreed, but then frowned. "Is it your opinion that I am not holding it together now?"

"What do you think? Are you able to function at peak efficiency right now?" he asked instead.

"No," she replied after a moment of intense thought. "However, I believe I am operating at an efficiency which is suitable to secure a… a place in which such matters could be pursued. It will be sufficient for the time being."

"Then there's nothing to say." He shrugged and turned to read his notebook. "Look, this is your future. You lot discuss it. I'll pitch in if you need me, but you all have to decide for yourselves what you want."

Diana turned to Tomoko.

"What are our options?"

"The Doctor has given us a large number of options. With a TARDIS, we can go anywhere," she said, "He's also suggested Karn. It's a pristine world right next to Gallifrey. I'll present the various options to everyone, and we will see what they think."

"Okay, sounds good."

Tomoko nodded and left without another word; she recognized the look in Diana's eye when Diana looked at Jake. She resisted the urge to bang her head on the nearest wall. She considered pacing around in the cooling chamber, then discarded that too. More thinking wouldn't help: she needed data. It was late, but a chat with someone like the Doctor might be helpful: she decided to go to the console room and check to see if he was there.

Therapy. She had been so occupied with trying to secure some sort of physical place to live that she hadn't even considered what to do once they got there, wherever "there" was, either Karn or wherever the Mashas finally chose. The request was obvious, but staggering in its ultimate complexity. Even with the resources that Jake had named, the idea of trying to arrange it all was daunting.

The idea of she, herself, going to a therapist was even more daunting. But he was correct, she wasn't operating at peak efficiency. There was nothing to be scared of. She had read about therapy; the therapist would ask her how she felt and they would talk.

How would she answer the question if it were asked? How did she feel? That thought brought her up short and she considered it carefully.

Lonely. It was the truth, but she was shocked to realize it. She didn't really have anyone to talk to… and then she shook herself out of it. Ridiculous girl, that would be what the therapist would be for. Rolling her eyes at her own silliness, she headed back to work to think it over.

* * *

Guinn stood in the middle of his new rooms and tried not to feel 'd asked for two and been given five. A private bedroom, a study, a bathroom, a sitting room with an entertainment console, and a storage room for whatever he wanted to put away out of sight.

"I hope it's okay?" Susan asked tentatively and he put an arm around her, holding her against him and trying to speak.

"I'm feeling a little lost, I guess," he admitted.

"I'm feeling hungry!" Koschei interjected and made a sad face at his wife, who laughed and dropped a kiss on his pouting mouth.

"Shall I fetch you something?" she asked and he nodded. She gave Guinn a kiss as well and then headed off, smiling.

"What did you want to talk about?" Guinn asked Koschei.

"You know me too well," he snorted.

"That was inevitable," Guinn pointed out.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," Koschei said and pointed at the wardrobe.

"Ah."

"Look, I went looking for clothes, I found the box, I looked inside. Once I realized, well, I put it all back, but it was a violation of your privacy and I'm sorry," Koschei confessed and Guinn breathed out.

"I'm relieved. I'd thought the Doctor..." he trailed off.

"I know, it's why I wanted to tell you."

"But not around Susan?" he asked.

"Do you really want her knowing about it?" Koschei asked, head cocked and eyes unreadable.

"Omega, no!" he retorted. "I don't ever..." It hit him then. It him him that he'd lost her, that he'd found her again, but it was a different her. This Susan had gone on suffering, striving, growing, and she'd gotten a future that his had lost. It wasn't just his loss, Susan had died, she'd lost out on the future he saw around him and the pain of that rose up and ambushed him.

He was crying, sobbing, huge, wracking, painful gasps that shook his whole body. Koschei caught him up in his arms, holding him as the wall he'd erected between himself and his pain collapsed.

"I'm ... sorry... I don't know why ... now..." Guinn gasped, trying to get control, but Koschei shook his head.

"It's okay, just get it out. You lost Susan. She died. I don't think I'd ever get over that, not completely, even if I got another version back, it would never erase that original loss."

"She didn't just die," he said. "I killed her. With my own hands."

"Oh Stars, I'm so sorry," Koschei gasped out, and his eyes were shut tightly, tears welling up, his face agonized. "Oh Guinn..." The words seemed wrenched out of him, his shoulders hunching with pain.

Guinn didn't know what to do, but he hugged Koschei back, clinging to him like he was a liferaft in a storm.

"I…" he took a breath, "failed her. I should go away and let the two of you have your future. I destroyed mine."

"You're wrong. There's nothing for me without her and I know it's the same with you. You might as well take some aspirin and be done with it, because life without her isn't worth living. Besides, if you think, even for a moment, that she'd let you go, then you must have missed the last few days. Did you have any intention of getting near her at all?" he asked ruefully.

"Yes. No. Yes." Guinn sighed. "I'm not going anywhere, Omega help me, I don't have the willpower."

"I'm intimately familiar with that problem." Koschei groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. "She looks at me and I'm on my knees."

"Tell me about it," he said ruefully. "I just…" he shook his head, thinking about what to say. "Worry. Worry about what my Susan might think, I killed her and now I am… off having fun with her replacement? And I worry about you and her, you two had a good thing going, and I am disrupting all of that, I just…" He closed his eyes. "The important thing is that she is happy."

"Look, I know her. I know her soul, her mind, and I can tell you that she'd never begrudge you an instant of joy. She would have died worrying about you. Susan... I was dying... I couldn't regenerate. She shot herself in the head, killed herself to trigger her own regeneration, and then gave me half."

Guinn stared at him, shocked into silence by the images evoked by Koschei's words.

"She could have died permanently, we were trapped underground, I could have lost her and all she cared about was saving me! Me! The most wretched, worthless creature in the universe and she was willing to die for me! So, don't you dare insult her by even suggesting that she would ever do anything so damn petty as to be jealous that you were happy. If she thought it would make you happy, she'd die a thousand times over." Koschei turned away, his face messy with tears and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "I have never deserved her, never, but I'd do anything for her and that means that you're going to be part of our lives, because if you weren't happy, she'd be crushed. So I am going to bloody well make sure you're happy! Understand!" It wasn't the most cogent speech ever given, but it was heartfelt and sincere.

Guinn put a hand on his arm.

"Easy," he soothed. "I'm not going anywhere."

Koschei nodded and gave him a sheepish look.

"Sorry, I just can't think about that without getting ...upset," he admitted.

"I understand that," he said, trying not to remember the way that the light had died from Susan's eyes.

Susan bustled back in with a tray of food and a Thermos of tea, looking at them both with a smile.

Guinn could feel her happiness, the way she just glowed with joy and wondered at it. Here she was, lovely, smart, and wonderful, and she was happy with what? He looked at Koschei and then back at himself. The two of them were half-mad, broken monsters and yet, she looked up at them like they were princes in a storybook.

"I brought some of the lasagne for you both," she told them and Guinn found himself smiling back at her without realizing that he was doing so.

"Thank you, my love," Koschei replied and kissed her softly, before he took a plate and cup from her.

"Susan," Guinn started and something in his tone must have worried her, because her smile started to fade. "Thank you, I was starving," he said quickly, changing what he'd been about to say. He smile widened again and he took the plate and cup trying not to feel like a horrible fraud.

His new sitting room had a table in it, so they settled around it to eat. After a few bites, Guinn realized that he had actually been quite hungry and he ate it all.

* * *

"Well, things seem to be mostly done," the Doctor informed Adie, while wiping his hands with a cloth. "TARDIS self-repair functions should have the rest sorted shortly."

They were standing in the console room of her TARDIS and the Doctor was feeling a glow of satisfaction for having gotten the repairs done. His wife was curled up in a chair nearby, working on the equations that they needed, through occasionally she would look up and grin at him. He was just happy that she was alive.

"I think it won't take too long," Adie said, looking up with a nervous half-smile.

"Nope," he agreed. "So, Guinn thinks we ought to leave the Loop tomorrow and that will be well in time to stop the Manifold from getting too large. The time differential has really worked in our favour here."

"Yes," she agreed, all traces of happiness vanishing from her face. "We should be able to catch up to the Manifold quickly."

"Adie, don't fret too much," he soothed. "Susan and Koschei will protect you and if your young man is out there, we'll track him down, not to worry."

"You keep saying that!" she burst out suddenly. "Gallifrey is gone and the Time Lords are dead and what are the chances.." She stopped suddenly and clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry, I'm sorry," she said.

"That's a good question, don't be sorry," he told her. "The chances? What were the chances that any of us would survive? Yet, we did. We keep finding more survivors all the time, too. There are so many places out there where someone could be hiding out, or trapped. We just don't know. I will tell you something though, Rassilon was mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but he wasn't stupid. He needed that young man, alive and intact, so he would have put him somewhere safe, my dear."

"Yes, you're probably right, I'm sure he's just between a set of gigantic couch cushions somewhere," she said with a slight smile, turning to her toolbox and dropping her sonic in it. Then she paused. "Wait… A Singer, you said?" Adie chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Does she have blonde hair?"

"No, it's as red as Susan's, though a shade brighter," Rose replied. "Or so Susan said."

"Huh," Adie said thoughtfully, closing the toolbox and wiping her hands with a rag.

"Why?" the Doctor asked.

"There was an Aislynn who visited the Command Centre once. I met her briefly. She and Farian were having… an enthusiastic discussion, I suppose, and when I came to investigate, he introduced me."

"How very odd," the Doctor muttered. "I wonder if she has anything to do with the Project. We'll have to ask her when we get back."

"No, I… I don't think so. I never saw her again and I was familiar with everyone who was working on the Project."

"Still, I wonder why she was there? It makes no sense." He frowned fiercely at the air, like he was expecting an answer to materialize in front of him.

"A lot of things went on at the Command Centre that made no sense to me," Adie mused, "especially as the war gained steam."

"Well, did you ever see a kick-line of nuns?" he asked.

"Um… no?"

"Then it probably didn't get to be that fun sort of no sense," he complained. "Nonsense is only interesting when it's the fun sort."

"Doctor!" Rose sighed. "Not to worry, Adie, we'll just ask her when we see her again, that's all."

"If she can tell you… I heard, much later, that she became Infected. Farian was just inconsolable."

"Were they very close friends?" the Doctor asked.

"They must have been. He was just so upset, but… I never saw them together and never heard them talk to each other. There were also no letters or communications that I was aware of."

"Well, I doubt that you could have known every communication in or out, after all, they knew Rassilon was about, they'd all have been careful." The Doctor was looking pensive, his mind ticking over visibly.

"Yes, and it's certainly possible that she could have set up secret communiques, particularly as a Singer, they were almost always assigned to coded communications." He nodded his agreement and Rose cocked her head, her energy shifting suddenly to Malla's.

"The Lady Aislynn was no ordinary Singer either," she informed them with an arched brow and the rolling elegant tones of a Gallifreyan noblewoman. "She was very young during the War, the youngest Singer in the combat zones, but brilliant and exceedingly competent. I worked with her at the Academy, I tutored her in Block Transfer Mathematics. Mind you, she quickly moved beyond me. A Singer has an intuitive grasp that we computationists can but envy."

"There were a number of computationists involved in the project, but no Singers," Adie mused thoughtfully.

"Well, a Singer could have slipped in a few lines of code that might have altered reams of computations. You cannot induce a Singer to do anything they choose not to, they can warp the reality around you and that is not something that person would have allowed," Malla explained and the way she called Rassilon 'that person' conveyed a contempt and hatred that was no less impressive for it's coolness.

"Are you telling me that… that you think Aislynn may have altered the Lens somehow?" Adie sounded alarmed.

"My dear girl, she could have Sung the whole place into a different configuration and no one would have been any the wiser for it. Only a careful analysis of the maths might have revealed it, but even then it's doubtful. You must realize that the computations themselves, the Songs, change the very nature of reality! If you could Sing the correct Song, you could unmake reality. It would take the combined strength of a thousand Singers, but it could be done. Logopolis held back the entropic death of the universe for a considerable time! All through their computations and Chants! It's a power that we are very lucky that only a scant few posses."

"Why didn't they just sing away the War, then?" Adie asked with a frown.

"They would have had to Sing away the entire Dalek Army, my dear, and there weren't enough of them to do so. Destroying one fleet alone, nearly killed our strongest Singer and the Scout Commander was crippled by it, unable to Sing again. We only ever had a half dozen of them at any given time and it would have taken a hundred to rid us of the Daleks, or we would have ages ago." She looked at the Doctor with a frown. "We tried other methods, with limited success."

"I see… thank you for the clarification, Malla."

"Not at all, I have far more experience with this sort of maths than the Doctor or Rose do," she replied and then faded out as Rose's energy moved forwards again.

"Bugger, I hate it when she does that," Rose snorted, her strong cockney accent startling after Malla's elegant diction. "You know, she lost her bondmate too." Rose gave her a look of sympathy. "So, I do understand why you're nervous."

"Yeah, but he's in here," the Doctor replied, tapping his skull. "They're still together, regardless."

Adie smiled and tried not to look nervous. She failed spectacularly.

"Ah, not comforting, eh?" he sighed. "Sorry."

"It's all right," she tried to smile. "It isn't your fault."

"No, not my fault, yet still my mess to clean up," he chuckled. "Don't worry too much though, I have a knack for doing the impossible."

"That's actually true. He saved Queen Victoria from a werewolf, you know."

"Okay..." Adie replied, having no idea who they were talking about.

"Mind you, she was a bit stuffy, really," Rose complained.

"That was after Albert died, you should have seen her when she was younger! That girl could dance the night away!" the Doctor enthused.

"Ah, I see the mistake of the werewolf. He should have just asked her to dance," Adie suggested.

"No, he thought that if he took over her body, he could rule England, apparently no one had explained about the Magna Carta or what 'Constitutional Monarchy' actually meant to it," the Doctor muttered. "That's the problem with Mad Monks, they always forget the little details."


	30. Chapter 30

A/N: It's a short chapter and I apologize for that, but the next one is nice and long. Promise!

Chapter 30 - Lukewarm Pursuit

"We need to take off today, how is it going…?" Guinn asked and Koschei pulled out his notepad and flipped through the checklist thoughtfully.

"Everything's done but the final install on the Nanites," Koschei replied and looked over at Susan who shrugged.

"I'm not sure that my equations are right for the wave form patterning. I always get in a muddle with the cosigns," she sighed out. It drove her mad some days that her mind simply didn't work the way she thought it ought to. She was proud of her intuitive grasp of biology, the way that the systems of life forms made sense for her, even had an intrinsic beauty in her eyes. But stick her in front of a wall of numbers and she felt like the village idiot. It was even harder when her family were all so mathematically gifted.

"So, could you check it for me?" she asked tentatively, not wanting to bother them while they were working.

* * *

Guinn was getting better; this time he stepped back, and let Koschei run the figures.

Having a relationship with Koschei was a difficult thing to balance. The plain fact was that Koschei made Susan happy. She loved him, loved their relationship, and glowed whenever he was around, although he doubted that she was aware of that. For his part, Koschei worshipped the ground she walked upon, which was only right and proper.

As for himself… well, he wasn't an interloper precisely and wasn't precisely a third wheel. He did have a place, he recognized that, but he was still trying to work out exactly what that place was. He and Koschei had formed a basic alliance, but he didn't think either of them was truly comfortable right now. At best, that would take time.

For the present and, if he was honest with himself, for the foreseeable future, he was doing his best to keep Koschei front-and-centre with Susan as often as possible. She was happiest that way, and her happiness was all that mattered.

"Here, let me fix a few of these," Koschei told her and her shoulders slumped a bit.

"I knew I'd mucked it up," she sighed and Guinn shook his head.

"Nonsense, you're quite brilliant at genetics, you do things the Rani would be hard pressed to duplicate," he assured her and Koschei nodded.

"Only because she was so sloppy and lacked a methodical approach," Susan sighed and Koschei shook his head.

"No really, love, you're amazing," he told her and Guinn did the nodding this time. She looked back and forth between then and tried to smile.

"All right, I'll stop being such a wet hen," she chuckled and Guinn took the opportunity to kiss her. Koschei finished up the equations and handed them back and she smiled at them both.

"Thank you. I suppose it will take two of you to keep me from being silly," she told them and headed back to her station to upload the data to the Nanites.

Guinn looked at Koschei, who returned the look with a thoughtful expression.

"Maybe it will," Koschei agreed and Guinn felt something inside of him ease just a bit. Maybe he did have a place here, even if it was only in a support role. He would take that, if it was what Susan needed him for.

* * *

Guinn, Koschei, and Susan came to Adie's TARDIS, arms filled with data chips and tablets. The Doctor had set up a main lounge as a briefing room, complete with big screens they could all write on. The Mashas, Adie, the Doctor, and Rose had already settled in and a certain uneasy quiet fell over them all as Guinn came in with the others.

"Hello Grandfather," Susan said and hugged the Doctor. "Staying out of trouble?" she asked.

"Never!" he chuckled as the three of them settled into chairs.

Tomoko activated the screens and the schematics for the Manifold began to scroll by.

"So, we have several basic types of observed Manifold forms," she said as schematics of each whirled around in 3-D detail. "Beetles; the tanks of the swarm. Relatively slow, don't do too much damage by biting, but tough as nails and the hardest of all the forms to kill. Of course our big bug is a beetle," she said, and its schematic popped up on the screen, with several objects for scale and some educated guesses about its probable honeycomb structure.

"Next up: Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Locusts. Crickets are the smallest, Locusts are the largest, all the same basic function: they break down matter. Thus far I have not yet located a substance through which they cannot chew. That includes the dimensional interface of TARDIS, by the way." The image changed again.

"Wasps; offence, offence, offence. Easy to kill, at least if you can actually hit the bloody things, which is easier said than done. They are capable of biting but do their main damage with their stingers. The amount of damage they can do, proportional to their size, is ridiculous. Here's the maths if anyone is interested."

"Finally: Ants. These are likely gatherers and builders, they probably don't go on attack runs like the others, but seem to be involved in maintenance of the swarm. That's disturbing, because it implies that there may be other forms of Manifold that we haven't seen yet, just because they aren't outright attacking."

"Let's see… ah, bio-metals, here's the molecular breakdown. See how it flows? Because the Manifold is made of this bio-metal, they can combine to form larger units and break down to form smaller ones. The only difference between larger and smaller forms is processing power: big bugs are smart bugs, little bugs don't individually have a great deal of intelligence. Weak spot is here for beetles, here for wasps, here for the ant, here for the cricket varieties; it disrupts the core matrix and will force them to shatter temporarily." She flipped through the screens.

"Finally: the Lens. We can make a precision shot, here. The big bug should shatter, even though it is a beetle. Beyond that, however, we're going to need additional tactics for the rest of the swarm and to deal with the bug in its broken-down form."

Tomoko trailed to a halt at last, thought for a moment, then sat down again.

"So," the Doctor said, rising to his feet and displaying a map of the area outside the Loop. "We have thirty-seven local systems, with forty-three inhabited planets. By my calculations the Manifold will take about a month to eat through all of them at the cost of about seventeen billion sentient lives. From the time we get out of the Loop, to the time it will take to set up the Lens, we are likely going to lose these three worlds," he said, pointing to the outer planets of the nearest system. "None of them are inhabited, luckily, but the next two after that are, so we will have to make sure we get them the first time." He looked at Koschei and sat down.

"The mass of the bug will probably exceed the Lens' ability to completely destroy it, once it has devoured those two worlds," added Koschei. "That's why we'll need a multi-pronged approach. We are going to lure the mass away from the inhabited worlds by trawling this asteroid here in front of it." He pointed to a series of metallurgical symbols next to a large asteroid. "It's got exactly the things the bug wants and that should lure it into more open space." He looked at Susan and she stood up.

"I've created a Nanite delivered retrovirus that will rust the insects to death, so, hopefully, that will mop up the ones the Lens can't destroy. I've created several waves of them, just to be sure."

The Doctor stood up again and nodded at Adie.

"Adie suggested a logic bomb and we are also going to release that in order to get as much of the bug's mass as possible in one area. Of course, like all plans, it's essentially just a hope we're launching, on the understanding that most plans are rubbish anyway," he told them with a grin. "Should things all go horribly wrong, the way they always do, we'll just wing it."

He smiled around the table at them all and then sat down. Tomoko stood up again, a wry smile on her face.

"Jake-77, Adie needs to be conscious for the Lens shot and as she is psychically sensitive, her suit won't be able to carry stealth capabilities. You'll have a portable stealth unit but your job will be to escort her in, keep all the bugs away from her until the Lens warms up, find some sort of cover for the shot, then get her back to the safety of the TARDIS. Any questions?"

"No," Jake replied. "Keep Adie alive and awake, got it."

"Good," Tomoko said grimly. "Team assignments: centre lens: Diana-37, Adie, Jake-77, Tomoko-6. Secondary ring, Evie-44, Zoi-29, Skye-52…" Tomoko read lists of names for a while. "Outer ring; you are on bug patrol duty, clear a path. Inner ring: you're secondary defence to centre lens. Secondary ring…" After a few minutes of reading names and assignments, Tomoko sat back down.

"All right!" the Doctor said with a clap of his hands and smile. "Now, we all know what to do when we get out of the Loop?" he asked and everyone around the table nodded.

"Right! Let's go do something stupid!"


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31 - Doing Something Stupid

Susan kissed Guinn fiercely, holding him very tightly to her, before releasing him and going with Tomoko back to her TARDIS.

"Be careful, all right?" Koschei told him, gripping his shoulder and looking at him with concern. "You die and she'll be devastated. Don't make me have to deal with that."

"I'll endeavour not to," Guinn assured him. "You take care of her. No matter what." Koschei nodded. Guinn then watched as Koschei walked away with the rest of the Mashas, Adie, and Jake.

When they were clear of the others, and when none of the other Mashas was looking, Tomoko punched Guinn on the arm.

"Hey," she said to him. "Give me your hand." Into his outstretched palm she dropped what looked at first like a bit of string. "For luck, okay? Just… don't ask where I got it." It was a pouch on a neck-string, and inside was the tiniest stuffed bear he had ever seen. It was rather bedraggled, but still looked sweet, even though it was about the same size as one of his toes. "And… don't laugh." Tomoko's cheeks were slightly pinker than usual.

"I wouldn't dream of laughing," he replied and then pecked her lightly on the cheek. "Thank you."

"Don't do that," she scolded him, "The others might see and get mad," she scolded and then hastened away quickly. Her cheeks were pinker than ever. Behind her, Guinn smiled and put on the necklace, feeling that maybe things weren't going to be so bad, after all. Assuming they survived, of course.

He turned and looked at the Doctor and Rose.

"So, shall we begin?" he suggested.

"Let's have an adventure!" Rose agreed, eyes sparkling.

"Oh yes! That sounds brilliant!" the Doctor agreed, bouncing a bit on his toes and all of Guinn's optimism vanished. He was trapped in a TARDIS with the danger twins.

"Oh yes... brilliant," he muttered.

* * *

Adie looked around Susan's TARDIS, seeing all the repair work that had damaged it's beauty with a sigh. The Mashas were milling about and she was feeling rather despairing. In spite of the Doctor's encouraging words, she really didn't believe that she would come out of the other side of the battle. But then she thought of what he had said, of how many lives were at stake in this sector alone, and she stripped down quickly and got into her suit. It was skin-tight, very sleek and shiny, and she somehow felt absolutely naked in it.

"Ready," she told her team when she came out, holding her helmet in her gloved hands, hoping she didn't sound as nervous as she felt. Because of the shielding, her suit was slightly bulkier than the others, which really were skin-tight.

"Try not to worry," Tomoko said encouragingly.

"Yeah, we have your back," Diana added.

"I'll be right there, Adie," Jake promised with a pixie smile. She nodded and tried not to look nervous.

"I'll try not to let you down," she said.

The floor started to shake and there was an awful whining noise.

"What is that?" Diana sounded alarmed.

"It's the barrier," Adie said. Her face was rather white. "We're trying to break out of the loop. Mind you, there is already a hole, and it is not likely to have sealed itself right away, but still…" she bit her lip nervously. "Let me get to the controls, they will need a third."

"Don't worry," Koschei called out, looking up from the boards. "We have two TARDIS, it's just the jolting from us slingshotting each other out."

"We're doing well, especially considering how badly they were damaged," Susan added, smiling sweetly at her.

The Doctor, Rose, and Guinn were fighting the boards, trying to keep her steady.

* * *

"Aaaaaaaaand now the roller coaster begins," grumbled the Doctor.

Moments later they were spinning so violently that everyone was slammed against the walls. He was gritting his teeth, fighting to hang onto the console.

"Come on, come on," he breathed. "Few more seconds…"

Rose was nearly knocked off her feet as the TARDIS lurched to one side. She screeched and scrabbled for a hold on the console. Guinn grunted as the violent shaking sent them sailing in the opposite direction, like balls in a pinball machine.

"I think that was the worst of…" his words were cut off as the room suddenly jerked in the opposite direction. He was flung away from the console and slammed against a wall before scrambling to his feet again, cursing under his breath.

"Going to hit the barrier on my mark," the Doctor called out "Three… two… one!"

Guinn struggled to his feet, nausea churning his stomach as they crossed the barrier. His head was spinning as his time sense tried to tell him two different times at the same moment. It passed quickly, but the residual queasiness remained for a moment more.

"Gah!" Rose cried, looking as sick as Guinn felt.

"Not pleasant, no," the Doctor agreed.

Guinn ignored them, moving to the monitor, only one concern in his mind.

Where was Susan's TARDIS? Where was Susan?

* * *

Susan was on her knees, emptying her stomach on the decking of her ship.

"We're stuck!" Koschei grumbled, as he crawled back to the controls.

"Stuck? Adie asked with a touch of fear in her voice.

"We didn't have quite enough momentum to pass all the way through the barrier," Koschei explained, feeling like his head was going to split apart from the pain of being in two times at once.

"We need a boost," Susan coughed out. "Burn!" she gasped.

"Right, good idea," Koschei agreed. "Adie, have you ever done a mass burn before?" he asked her.

"No, but I am familiar with the theory," Adie looked absolutely green, but her hands were steady on the controls.

"Right, you man the stand-by energy converter and I will pilot, all right?" he asked, wincing as his head beat out a samba.

Adie nodded and staggered her way to her place.

"Right. Counting down from five, hit the button on zero, copy?" he groaned, as he set the coordinates.

Adie nodded.

"Five... four... three... two... one... zero...Hit it!" he cried and threw the lever for de-materialization, at the same moment Adie punched it hard.

There was a lurch, as they were thrown violently across the console room, and then a sudden stillness and the sense that time was back where it was supposed to be.

"Oh, much better," Susan groaned.

* * *

"There they are!" the Doctor cried in relief and Susan's TARDIS materialized nearby.

"Yes," Guinn replied, his voice steady, even though his pulse was only now starting to calm.

"Right, time to stomp the bug," Rose reminded them and they nodded. "Is it my imagination, or is that thing a whole lot bigger than it was before!"

"No more gravity to constrain it's proportions," the Doctor told her.

"It can grow all it likes, eat all it likes, until it's so massive that it dwarfs a galaxy," Guinn added, his tone grim. "Which is what I told her at the time! Not that she listened!"

* * *

"It's in orbit there," Adie pointed to the uninhabited, cold outermost planet.

"It's huge!" Diana exclaimed.

"Big as a moon!" Eve added with her eyes wide and filled with wondering fear.

"Technically, it's a space station," Adie murmured.

"What are the rest of them doing?" Zoi asked.

"Looks like they are dismantling the whole planet!" Sophie replied staring. They had already stripped off the outermost layers, revealing the strata of that world, the twinkling lights of the insects looking like distant explosions against the surface. The planet's size had been reduced by at least half; while the swarm was now so vast as to be uncountable. The large beetle, hung in the sky, looming over everything, casting the world in shadow, as it's progeny worked. The cloud of them surrounded it so thickly that it was almost invisible, just a larger light inside an ever shifting light show of sparkling beauty.

"Why do they have to be so darn pretty?" Sophie sighed out.

"They really are, aren't they," Tomoko admitted.

"I've nearly been killed by lots of pretty things, Mashas," Susan told them with a frown. "Let's save some lives, shall we?" They nodded and ran to finish their preparations.

"We're here earlier than we thought," Koschei informed them.

"We are," Tomoko agreed and frowned at the screen. "We'll have to get through the cloud to get a clear shot at the main mass."

"I suspect that Susan's Nanites ought to be able to clear a path," Koschei replied and she nodded slowly.

"We'll only have one shot, so we'll have to make it a good one," she sighed out, not liking how the maths were working out in her head.

"Which is why you all need to be in the configuration we worked out," Koschei said, looking around at the Mashas in their stealth suits, most of them carrying heavy weapons as well.

"But we can't take a shot until its well away from that planet," Tomoko pointed out and Koschei nodded.

"Why?" Evie asked.

"Gravity well collapse, it'll throw off the mathematics of the shot, we need to take it while it is deep space." She paused. "The Lens is so big that no one ever planned on having to aim the damned thing."

"Well, what is the point of a gun you can't aim?" Evie asked, perplexed.

"Evie, don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to. Trust me on this one," Tomoko said, and her expression was so dark that Evie stammered and desisted.

"Right, let's see what we can do to aim the unaimable," Koschei said, giving Evie an encouraging smile.

"So, let's edge closer, but not close, don't look tasty, if you can," Koschei told Adie.

"How do we do that?" she asked.

"I don't know, fly casual," he suggested and Adie nodded. It felt good to be confronted with a problem, to have something to think of. Adie kept the TARDIS well away from the swarm, too far to attract its attention, and just observed it.

"It's really a fascinating thing to watch," she told Koschei. "From a distance, anyway."

"Yeah, the distance part is really, really important," he agreed with a frown. "Rose was just a bit too close for my comfort.

He ran his hands along the boards and shields popped up that she hadn't even known about before. She was glad to get the chance to pilot the TARDIS, but she was very, very glad that Koschei was here to help.

* * *

The Doctor was looking at the Manifold with a deep frown.

"I'm not looking forward to trying to get through that cloud," he muttered.

"It'll be all of the Mashas that will be trying to get through it. All you have to do is make certain they don't take the TARDIS, while I fire the Lens," Guinn replied.

"There goes the planet," Rose said.

And so it was; its mass had gotten too low to sustain itself, and so it had broken up into boulders. The bugs swarmed around the larger ones, but there was no question that they were turning.

"Always happens when bad neighbours move in," the Doctor muttered, working at the console with a fevered pace.

* * *

"Can Susan burst that stuff?" Diana-37 asked Koschei. "If she picked a place where it was thin, it might cause enough of a distraction for us to slip through."

"Just remember we have a limited time, the stealth capabilities are a drain on the power packs, don't turn them on before you have to... What do you think, Koschei, Jake?" Tomoko asked.

"I think she could. Plus, they're metal. If I tossed a powerful enough electro-magnet into the middle of the swarm, it could clear more of them out of the way, if only for a short while," Koschei mused.

"Point at what you want me to shoot, Diana, and I'll shoot it," Jake chuckled and then shrugged.

"I figured I would handle the burst damage, you could handle the single-targeting, then once we get in range, it would be up to you to keep them off... that's going to be the tricky part, hope you like shooting things," Diana grinned at him.

"You're in luck, Angel, I love shooting things," Jake assured her. "Though I like kissing you just a bit more." He kissed her swiftly in illustration.

"At its current speed and course, I estimate we have ten to fifteen minutes before it takes up orbit around the next planet in line."

"Ready to go fishing?" Adie asked.

"I brought my pole and some tasty bait," Koschei told them with a chuckle.

"We're ready," Susan chimed in with a concerned look at her husband. He was obviously both nervous and excited, because he only started doing the 'whistling in the dark' thing when he was trying to keep his spirits up.

"Go bait the hook, we're right behind you... Susan, you ready with the Nanites? Once you have its attention I think we are going to punch through from here…" Tomoko relayed coordinates to Susan's TARDIS.

Susan studied the plot and nodded.

"That looks good," she agreed. "Tell me when and I'll release the first wave."

"Jake, Diana, you ready?"

Koschei had let the asteroid out on a long, invisible tether. At first it looked as if the bug wouldn't take the bait: but then the swarm slowly shifted, chasing it. A few bugs started to settle on its pitted surface.

"On my mark, Susan."

"Ready," Jake replied, his face gone impassive. To Adie's Time Lord vision, it was like he went gray suddenly, his focus snapping into place and his emotions just vanishing into a box in the back of his head. It was actually a bit creepy.

Susan walked over and placed her fingers gently on Adie's temples.

"Ready?" she asked and Adie nodded. Susan drew her ever so tenderly into the gestalt, her mind and Koschei's twining around hers, cradling her between them. It was different this time, she could almost hear the echo of Guinn as well, but also there was a seriousness and a... sadness in both of them that she didn't quite understand. She felt warm and safe though, like she'd been wrapped up in soft fluffy blankets.

She looked up at Susan and nodded when she felt herself to be stable in the connection and then she walked over to join the Mashas.

"On your mark, Tomoko," Susan told her.

"Three... Two... One," Tomoko chanted and they all gathered, ready to step out and get into their pre-ordained positions.

The doors to the TARDIS opened.

"Good luck, Koschei, Susan," Adie said, and put on her helmet, snapping down the faceplate, and going to meet Jake and Diana, waiting at the doors. "Let's give that a ten-count to take effect... ten... nine... eight…"

The swarm was buzzing furiously, its attention focused on the delicious asteroid. It was a moment before it took effect, and then Diana pointed, as a group of the bugs began to rust.

".. three... two... one."

Tomoko jumped out the door into the void, hit zero-G, and activated her jet-boots, diving straight at the swarm. Diana waited for Jake, and then was right behind him. The rest of them jumped too, activating their boots, falling like a cluster of stars.

* * *

Jake was in that place he went to when it was time to fight. He felt nothing but the focus. His eyes were flicking around finding targets. He'd learned the hard way how to close himself off. He followed the girls, ready to destroy.

"Coming up on the swarm... Activating stealth in five... four... three.. two... one."

Diana activated first, just disappearing; the others could see where she was because their faceplates allowed them to track; but hopefully the bugs had no idea. The Mashas followed and then it was a slalom course as they dove back and forth and around, avoiding the disoriented bugs, closing on the big one in the middle. It was like trying to make planetfall.

Jake was calm and relaxed, letting his body drive, moving by instinct and trained reflexes, his mind on the target, his focus on the task at hand.

"This'll do," Tomoko said at last. "Two minute charge up, thirty seconds firing time. You'll need to keep us clear for at least three minutes," she said to Jake. "Adie, get into place, please."

The others took up their positions. They didn't need to be told what to do. This had been put inside of them long ago and now, when they needed the power for which they had been created, it was readily at hand.

"Powering up," said Diana, as she dropped her shields, and began to glow. All around her, her sisters began to do the same, as if a cluster of stars had suddenly settled into a series of concentric rings.

It was unspeakably beautiful; mathematics converted into geometry. Scores of the metallic insects, generally attracted to light, instead veered away, alerted by either instinct or intelligence to the sudden peril they were in. Many of them disintegrated because they came too close; others because of the nanites. It didn't take long until the construct was glowing in a space that was free of all invaders.

The only dark spot was Adie, in the exact centre, her eyes closed in concentration. The Mashas could gather energy; but it was only Adie that could direct it. She had no stealth and hovered, silent and imminently vulnerable. The Manifold, sensing the hole, was trying to fly down through it to escape their deadly trap.

Jake simply set the counter going and began to fire. He moved with an economical grace that was beautiful to behold, firing and scanning, firing and scanning, frighteningly accurate and controlled. Bugs vanished, like tiny novas all around them as he fired.

Next to him the stars were gleaming, beautiful and terrible. The bugs were rusting, swarming into each other madly, flying at him so closely that it was no longer necessary to scan: clouds of them were turning towards him. Beyond him, the timeless mass of the large bug was beginning to shift. It seemed to have noticed the commotion, but too late, Jake hoped.

Behind him, over his left shoulder, the sun abruptly rose.

* * *

Susan stood, her fingers poised to fire wave two. Koschei standing beside her, his hands stilled as they waited. He was ready to pilot the TARDIS to the rescue if needed, but just then, there was nothing for him to do, but wait.

* * *

Guinn watched the energy levels carefully, balancing the need for huge amounts of energy against the biological constraints of the young woman who waited quietly for a blast that might easily kill her. His gut twisted as he thought about her danger and what he'd done to her and then... he fired the Lens.

The strung out jewels of light pulsed and then the light flared and sped along the invisible lines of connection between the Mashas and Adie. All that power, that energy, like a hundred suns, raced out across space in a glorious exhalation of nearly divine power and impacted Adie, lighting her up like a supernova.

* * *

Adie held the equation in her mind, Susan and Koschei were there with her, holding it between all of them and she let it fly, angles, trajectory, force, all expressed in light and energy, a beam of devastating power that in zero-g was free to express itself in a complicated grid-and-flower firing pattern, unearthly, compelling, and exhilarating.

Adie felt the power of a god running through her, the hair rising on her arms, her body quivering with it and in her hands was life, death, or re-birth, she held that thought for a moment and then gently released it.

She had had no idea how she knew how to do this, but she did. She hadn't realized, until this moment, that she must have been altered too, somehow, though obviously in much subtler ways. Now the power had been gathered for her, and she could take in her hands and spin it like lightning, directing it wherever she chose.

The power spike was impressive. The strain came across the mental pathways, but, as the maths had predicted, her Time Lord physiology handled it, even if just barely. She was holding the energy, gathering it in, allowing it to build. The spike had to be as potent as possible or, it wouldn't shatter the bug.

Adie let the energy go, and watched it peel away from her, as if the star had fallen to the great silver earth, and then through it. It kept going and going and going, getting smaller and smaller in the dark hole that it drilled for itself. She watched it until she couldn't see it anymore, and then hovered over the edge, looking down into the seemingly bottomless, perfectly neat round hole, half a mile wide.

The beam had hit dead-centre in the main mass of the giant beetle, straight between the eyes, it drilled through the neural cortex, ripping into it's mind and tearing it apart. It broke in half, a sensation of profound surprise radiating from it and then, like glass hitting the floor, it then dissolved into countless fragments, falling apart into smaller and smaller flecks of silver.

Susan fired again and the second swarm of Nanites was a thousand times more vast than the first one. It spread out like a wave of devastation, working much faster than the last version. The time differential had worked in her favour. She'd created enough nanites to have taken out half the swarm before contact even began to be an issue. It was like watching a wave of red flowing across the sky.

* * *

"My God," Rose breathed out and the Doctor just nodded, both pleased and horrified by the destruction they were watching.

"Is this going to work?" Guinn asked suddenly. "It's bigger than we calculated for."

"Trust her, Susan knows what she's doing," the Doctor replied, his tone absent, all his attention on the drama playing out on the screen.

"There, look, it's trying to put itself back together!" Rose gasped.

The Doctor and Guinn both peered more closely and saw the big bug struggling to reassemble itself. Parts of it would reform, a leg, a thorax, but each time, the wave of red would lap around it and it would fall apart again.

"There it goes!" the Doctor exclaimed as it shattered into a sea of silver, a nearly-solid spherical mass, as if the twin TARDIS had suddenly materialized within a planet. There were large red sections where the bugs were crumbling to dust.

* * *

Adie floated in space, she was surrounded by the silver liquid that was turning red and drifting now, no longer guided by any sort of intelligence.

She'd done it. She'd fired the Lens and survived. She heaved a sigh of relief. Everything was fine and nothing had...

Then she felt it. The distinctive chink feel of a domino falling, tipped over by whatever she had held inside of her. She felt it in her chest somewhere. She couldn't have explained it to anyone, but it was there.

Susan was holding her close in the gestalt, her strength and light buoying her up.

Her ears were filled with the sound of falling dominoes and she knew, somehow, that once the dominoes had been tipped, there was no setting them back up again. It was the moment, the one that the Doctor had warned her about. She had been frightened, and still was, but she was also comforted. Her job was done, and she couldn't help but be pleased about that.

She found Susan's energy and held on to it tightly.

It came to her. The Arkytior. There it was. It had been there the entire time. Now the fallen dominoes had made it a pathway and it had come.

* * *

Fire. She was burning up, but not being consumed. She saw everything. The universe was at her feet. But, it was also out of her grasp. She could see, but not touch, not interact.

Lonely.

She was alone in a universe teeming with life. Isolated. Desolate. Discontented.

Love.

She craved it, craved connection, craved interaction, craved a different sort of heat from what she'd always known.

Touch.

She wanted so desperately to touch, but there was nothing and no one she could reach out to without burning them up.

She needed a hole. She pushed and things changed.

A tiny gap in the Void. Something, someone, a mind, a soul, the bright shining heat of emotion, of connection, and she was drawn in, a flaming moth to a tiny pinprick of light. She reached and pushed, trying to get as much of herself as she could through the tiny hole, stretching the hole as wide as she could and feeling, for the first time ever, the warm breath of a lover against her cheek. Desperate for more, she surged forward, only to feel pain and agony, loss and rage, screaming through her.

She'd burned them both up in her desperate eagerness.

* * *

Waiting. Long, endless as she pushed slowly and carefully.

Another tiny hole!

Caution, caution, she sang to herself, creeping into the hole, careful this time.

Still, the hole was so small and she was so vast. The emotions were so stimulating, so fierce, they drove her and when fear of loss came, she surged forward again.

This time she saw the fires spreading out across the stars and withdrew as quickly as she could.

Not quick enough.

The Lover was dead and the other one, the Cold One, remained, trying to consume the power.

Her gap in the Void reached back to her this time, held her, and burned herself up.

* * *

Another gap and this time the fire moved slowly to touch.

The Cold One was still there.

All ended in fire and death again, more stars flaming and dying.

* * *

The wait after that was so long. She pushed and moulded, but it was never right.

She waited as gaps came and went. Waiting for one that was larger, stronger.

Finally.

Something large enough.

She reached and found a mind strong enough to touch her, without burning. She built a bridge between them, and then searched for the second energy, the one that had to be there. The Lover.

She twisted reality, bent and skewed the universe to bring them together, again and again, until they SAW and KNEW and then the joining was all that she had yearned for and more.

* * *

Now she reached for connection and felt confusion. Another gap? Why? How? She hadn't made this! Why was it here? She moved forward, puzzled and confused by the strange hole and then felt the other gap there as well, caring, loving, and supporting.

Important. This gap was important to her other, to her interface with the physical universe.

But something was very wrong.

It was fragile, injured, barely strong enough to support her touch and it was alone.

The Cold One. This was its doing.

Rage moved through the Arkytior.

* * *

Adie was caught in the mind of something so vast and so ancient that the weight of it was crushing her. Susan was there, holding her together, trying to cushion her against the monstrous forces that were moving through her, but she was drowning, her own self being pushed aside by the Arkytior's might.

Adie could feel her rage, but she could also see how beautiful she was. She was all the light in the universe, all the heat, all the warmth, everything that burned was, in some way, a part of her and oh, how she burned. It was like stepping from the cold towards a fire, but she was too close to the conflagration. It was all too much, too hot, and Adie was burning up.

The Arkytior was lovely, a creature of passion and vast emotion, but so filled with rage and pain. Suddenly, Adie felt a surge of pity for her. She was so vast, so powerful, and yet so terribly alone. Without understanding why, Aide reached back to her, wanting this ancient sorrowful being to not be alone, to not feel such pain. She wanted to soothe her somehow.

* * *

The Cold One... was not here. This was made from his thoughts, his desires, but he was not there to try and drink from her power.

It was a second interface, smaller, more delicate, a second touch to the universe and there was an agreement being made. It reached back to her and she heard.

* * *

The Arkytior reached and Susan pushed back against her. It was like plunging her brain into acid, it burned and flared and she was screaming, trying to fight through the pain. The Arkytior seemed to sense her anguish because it pulled back, just a bit, enough for her to focus, though she could feel the vast puzzlement as she did so.

Susan had never before tried to reason with the Arkytior. She'd spent her life fighting to keep it down, to hold it back. She wasn't even sure that she could be heard by it. It was as far beyond her as she was beyond an amoeba, after all.

/Slowly/ she sent to it, trying to pause the mad rush of energy that threatened to burn out Adie's mind.

The thought was not a new one to to the Arkytior, but it was surprising. Never before had a conduit spoken to her, advised her. It was a tiny voice, hard to hear over the roar of her own being, but it was there.

Touch! it replied, the thought just there in Susan's head, not as if someone had spoken, but as if the word had always been there and she was only now noticing it.

/Yes, but slowly/ Susan tried to send again, hoping that her mind was strong enough to reach her through the tumultuous fury of her being.

Damage to the physical structure was not damage to the star of light that was the gap. It was a complex series of concepts and images that Susan had trouble deciphering for a moment, but she finally was able to encompass that view just enough to reply.

/Physical damage is pain. Loss/ Susan was desperately trying to explain, her awareness stretched to the breaking point, as she tried to hold Adie safely against the surging tide of flame and light.

A novel concept, one that required thought.

Too much energy, Susan realized. The longer she held on here, trying to keep Adie together, the longer the Arkytior's energy impinged on this universe. She could withdraw and Adie could burn, or she could hold on and risk some other disastrous collision between this universe and whatever and wherever the Arkytior resided.

She pushed Adie back, sending a plea to the Arkytior and then she felt it. It was like an earthquake, only it rattled the whole of space and time. She shoved as hard as she could, trying to force the power of it away from where they were, in this teeming populated system, all those sentient lives, so fragile on their tiny worlds.

She shoved and felt it all tearing away from her.

"Where?" Adie gasped in her mind and they both reached out, trying to channel that impossible force with their tiny selves, like ants trying to shift the ocean.

"Here," Susan replied and with all that remained of her strength, she twisted, pulling the energy into the abandoned Möbius Loops, Adie behind her, pushing with her, two pebbles that were quickly swept away by the avalanche.

It was all so impossibly huge.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32 - Crushed Under the Tide

Susan was far out at sea, and Adie was even farther, clinging precariously to the life buoy thrown out by Susan. There was some portion of her mind that had a vague recollection that Koschei and Guinn were involved somewhere; but she was so far out to sea that it was impossible to tell where or how. The Arkytior was so unspeakably vast that she could barely even sense Susan.

Susan had all she could do to keep from being swept away from herself, and Adie knew that it was a burden to her to maintain the life buoy. For all of her good will, and the critical necessity of the buoy, she could not be an anchor against the tall violent waves of this timeless creature.

Unthinkingly, she reached out for a hand that should have been there, for something to hold onto, but she ran into a barrier of some sort. There was a wall between her and that hand that should have been there. She was alone in the endless reaches of the Arkytior and it didn't want her.

Susan was straining herself past the breaking point. She was holding desperately to Adie's mind, trying to sustain her, but it was so hard. She was being stretched between Koschei and Guin and the far distant light that was Adie.

"Please," she cried out to the Arkytior. "She'll die!"

There was something, some awareness that crept into Susan's brain, but it was too much for her, she couldn't understand everything that was being told to her. Images, ideas, concepts that had no words were being shoved into her at an ever expanding rate and she was fighting to keep herself from being pulled under by the raging tide of the Arkytior's being.

She felt hot suddenly, as though fire was burning inside of her. Pain was impinging on her awareness and she fought hard to hold on, trying to find a place of peace and safety in this place. Koschei's mind was wrapped around her, helping to buffer her, but it was overwhelming them both.

She was burning up.

It was the vastness that broke Adie. She had spent a hundred years in isolation in the Command Centre, but the desolation of the Arkytior finally taught her what it really was to be alone. The weight of it crushed her hearts, leaving a gaping black hole in its wake.

She tumbled back into her body and the sudden agony of breathing was too much for her. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the darkness.

At the centre of the formation, Adie was a glorious sight, burning like an angel in heaven and then the light began to fade, the Mashas were dimming, but the tiny figure of their focus still burned. Jake gasped aloud as he realized that she was really burning. Her position as the focus meant that all that energy had been channelled through her and the fiery intensity of it hadn't dimmed yet.

She hovered there for a timeless moment and then she fell, tumbling towards the gravity well of the planet nearby.

"Bugger!" he shouted darted forwards, catching Adie's plummeting figure, as fragments of the Manifold fell around him like rust coloured rain. She was still burning and he could feel the heat of her through the fabric of his suit. He realized that his suit was starting to smoke a bit and he turned and raced back to the TARDIS, hoping that Susan would know what to do.

He was so concerned for her and worried that that their burning suits might expose them to vacuum, that he hardly noticed that inside her suit, she was still glowing.

Tomoko zipped towards him.

"What's wrong with her?" she asked.

"I don't know, she won't stop burning!" he told her.

"I'll cover you!" she told him as his arms were full with Adie's limp form. She pulled her weapon blasting anything that moved, clearing a path for them both.

Susan's nanites were wreaking havoc on the Manifold, but there were still so many of them remaining, that it was almost like being underwater.

Susan was shaking in his arms, the strain of communicating with the vastness of the Arkytior was taking its toll on her. Koschei felt a stirring of fear. Adie was returning, he could feel her moving towards them, but the Arkytior hadn't yet withdrawn completely, though he didn't know why.

/Susan, love, come back!/ he begged, but she was so far away that he wasn't even certain that she could hear him. He was pouring his entire being into her and it wasn't enough. He wasn't sure he had

the strength to anchor her, when she was so far out.

She was burning hot in his arms, as he held her against him. He could feel the heat radiating off of her. The smell of smoke, scorched hair, and flesh came to him and he understood.

This was it. They were going to die.

/Guinn,/ he cried to his other self. /We knew this might happen. I am so sorry./ Koschei held on to Susan, ready to cut Guinn out of the gestalt to save him, if it came to that.

/Together, love, no matter what,/ he whispered to her and bound himself all the more tightly to her. If she was going to burn up, she wouldn't do it alone.

Guinn's head jerked up as the realization hit him. He understood suddenly what they were willing to do and he frowned.

"No," he growled and Rose and the Doctor both looked at him in confusion.

He reached out through the link to Susan and saw it all. He could spy the vastness of the Arkytior, Koschei pulling with all his might on the narrow cord that bound him to Susan and Susan herself, a tiny speck, far out to sea, flaming like a star.

His Time Lord senses registered the splashes and ripples of Time caused by the collapsing Möbius Loops. Chained together, the Loops were burning as if they had been a fuse; and as many as the Time Lords had collected, it wouldn't be enough if the Arkytior didn't withdraw this very moment.

His ears heard the dismal sound of the Cloister Bell and the tell-tale thunks and scratching noises of the Manifold, trying to chew their way into the interior, even as the Nanite swarm rusted them to nothing.

It was his intuition, though, that saw the truth.

It was surely the Arkytior who had pushed probability, trying to warp it sufficiently to allow his safe passage to this timeline. She must have done this because Koschei, for all of his strength, for all of his love and loyalty to Susan, simply was not enough, when she was so far gone. The Arkytior had needed…

Go on, say it, he chided himself.

… needed someone expendable. Someone that could be burned through like a candle in a blast furnace. A spare.

Damn fate, and damn the Arkytior.

/On my mark, get ready to pull,/ he told Koschei. /It's been an honour to know you. Take care of Susan./ He almost said, 'for me,' but bit the words back at the last moment. /Three… two… one… mark./

/Guinn! No!/ Koschei cried, but Guinn ignored him.

He took a deep breath, held it, and stepped out to sea, putting himself between Susan and the Arkytior. If someone was burning up today, it wasn't going to be Susan, he was determined on that.

There was a moment, for the space of a hung breath, when they were there together, out in the midst of the raging fires of the Arkytior, in the impossible vastness and depths of it. It was the shock of him being there that drew Susan's attention that pulled her eyes to him and, in that moment, the connection to the Arkytior was cut, and Koschei had her.

His last glimpse was of her being pulled backwards by the golden cord wrapped so tightly around her waist, back and gone, safe at last.

/Koschei!/ she screamed, her face horrified and her arms reaching for him, even as she was whisked away. So, he thought, in her hearts he wasn't merely Guinn to her. That was nice.

The waves receded, as solidly inevitable as the falling away of the tide; and in their passing they swept everything else away. They swept away the room around him; swept away the sounds of the cloister bell and the Manifold; swept away his awareness of the disintegrating chain of Möbius Loops.

He was left in a field of solid whiteness, without edge or horizon, laying on his side like a mound of leftover seaweed. His thoughts dripped gently out of him, seeping across the floor, a forgotten tide pool left high and dry.

The edges of the solid white field were fading into darkness.

There was something, someone, here. A pair of bare feet, in delicately shimmering gold, walking towards him. The gathering darkness permitted him to see only as far as her calves.

Then she was kneeling beside him. Even with the faint aura glowed delicately around her, he recognized her at once, her brown hair exactly as he remembered it, her green eyes precisely the shade that he recalled.

She was smiling.

The waves had washed his hearts far away, but they leapt up at the sight of her.

/...you look so peaceful.../ He was incapable of speech, but it didn't seem to matter.

She kissed his forehead gently as the darkness gathered.

/I am at peace,/ she said to him. /Because you are happy./

It was as if a boulder fell away from him at her words. The darkness reached out and claimed him, but it didn't matter. She was at peace, and because she was at peace, so, too, was he.

Tomoko blasted the last patch of bugs as Jake swerved.

"Get to Susan's TARDIS!" She called to him, and he headed straight towards the second TARDIS, with several of the Mashas taking over escort duty for her.

Tomoko, however, headed for the Doctor's TARDIS. The tiny beeping in the corner of helmet's screen told her that Guinn was in trouble. She had to get to him shot for the TARDIS, cleared the doors with her EMP pistol, and burst through them as fast as she could. The Doctor was cursing at the console, trying to keep the TARDIS steady, while Rose was kneeling beside Guinn, using some odd device on him.

"Get over there!" the Doctor shouted at her over the sound of the cloister bell, which was making doleful donging sounds as locusts settled on the skin of the TARDIS, trying to chew their way in, only to rust away to nothing, or to be scattered by the oscillating shields.

She had expected it to be bad; but she didn't recognize Guinn when she spotted him, lying on the console room floor. The best looking thing about him at that moment was the pouch which Tomoko had given him earlier.

He was severely burned from head to toe, his hair only patches on his head, his skin blackened and cracked, his clothes melted to his flesh.

"Can you get him to Susan?" Rose asked, as the Doctor threw himself across the console fighting the ship's attempts to pull itself apart and they were all shaken around by the lurching of the decking.

"That's why I came," Tomoko answered as she pulled a stasis tab from her gear, stopping only to open the pouch around Guinn's neck momentarily. The tiny bear was glowing, its stomach flashing red with an intermittent light. She squeezed its belly. There was a hint of a click noise, the light shut off, and the minuscule stuffed animal looked as sweet as ever. She stuffed it back in the pouch and closed it.

She pointed her handheld scanner at him, then slapped the stasis tab against his chest, watching it expand, enclosing him in a silvery capsule.

"Koschei!" she called over the radio. "Are you there? I'm bringing Guinn to you, is Susan up? I'm sending over the initial scan, prep the medi-bay!"

"Of course we're up, she's been worried sick," he replied, sounding none too happy himself.

"Koschei, are you three all right?" the Doctor asked.

"We kept Adie safe, Theta," Koschei replied and the Doctor frowned, as did Tomoko. They exchanged a look, not liking all the things that hadn't been said there.

Stasis fields could be hard to maneouver simply because they had no handholds: but an anti-gravity disk took care of that. She pushed it past Rose and the console, staggered once as the TARDIS took a hit, then regained her footing.

"I need a path to the other TARDIS! Anyone that has wounded meet us, we're making a run for medi-bay!" she called out over her headset.

"You've got to be kidding," Diana replied over the Comm.

"I'm not kidding and we're doing it in four minutes, thirty-eight seconds," she said grimly, pushing the stasis field in front of her. "Move out!"

She dived out the door with the stasis field.

Susan's TARDIS wasn't visible from Adie's, despite the fact that they were only a few hundred feet apart. The clouds of nanites had attracted the wrath of the Manifold, and they were swarming around so thickly that the ship couldn't even be seen. Enormous patches of them were falling away to dust, but the swarm had reached such an impossible size that there was some question of whether even the Nanites would be enough.

Tomoko grimly set about the business of trying to dig her way in; but she simply couldn't fire fast enough by herself, while also dragging Guinn's stasis container behind her.

"On my way!" shouted Diana over the Comm.

"You're mad!" Sophie informed her as she swept in and began firing.

"Move it!" Moira ordered and slashed her way through a large patch of them, like a threshing machine.

"I'm on it!" Lenore called out and then there were dozens of them all around her, clearing her path for her.

"I can't believe we're doing this for him!" Neveah grumbled, but she fired as quickly as the others.

"We're not," Devorah snapped back. "We're doing this for us!"

After that, the only chatter was the sounds of them targeting the swarm and watching each other's backs. The Mashas had set themselves up in lethal groupings of four: but the Manifold were just as deadly. It was nothing more or less than a war, and they were stacking up wounded in a hurry. Many of those who joined them were either wounded themselves, or were carrying the unconscious forms of the fallen. Koschei had made the suits self-sealing if punctured; but the suits, and the girls wearing them, were being pushed past all limits.

"Three minutes!" Called Tomoko, firing at a patch of locusts who were trying to settle on the stasis field.

"What happens in three minutes?" Called back Evie.

"The stasis tab runs out of power and the patient gets dumped into deep space, that's what!"

"Wonderful," Sophie said dryly.

"Koschei! We've got twenty incoming, we're messed up pretty bad out here! We need an EMP burst the second we're in range, this is going to be mighty close! You there? Marie! Wasp, 4 o'clock!"

"On it," Koschei replied, his voice crackling with static, but supernally calm.

Marie turned lazily, firing with terrifying precision, and the Wasp collapsed, before falling to red dust.

"Two minutes…. everyone concentrate fire on my mark, we're going to make a run for burst range! Three, two, one… mark!"

A burst of blaster-fire followed. Tomoko put her jet-boots on full and streaked towards the other TARDIS, shouldering her way past two large beetles through sheer momentum. The stasis field was beginning to flicker.

"Come on, come on," she breathed almost to herself. "Koschei, might want to think about an atmosphere bubble too if you can do it."

"It's automatic," he replied absently over the mike. "This is a hospital ship." He said that as though it was an obvious thing that everyone should know, and Tomoko resisted a snarky reply.

"Just for the record, the specifications didn't…" but her transmission cut off in a curse and a burst of static as the stinger of the enormous wasp missed her helmet by inches, throwing her off course. She tumbled for a moment, looked around wildly for the capsule, then went after it, swearing madly, dodging another swoop by the wasp. The wasp was costing them precious seconds and the stasis field was lightening to almost transparency.

"I need that burst!" She called to him.

"Right. Turn off your mike," he suggested, she did so and the burst of EMP that shattered through the clustered bugs made her head ring.

The stasis field collapsed. Her heart skipped a beat for a moment but then she realized they had made the edge of the extruded atmosphere bubble. There were still in zero-G, but were shielded by the TARDIS against instantly freezing solid or suffocating.

She gathered his limp form in her arms and jetted for the door. Others followed. Jake and the rest, she noted gratefully, were keeping any stray insects well clear of the opening. She manoeuvred inside, braced against the moment when gravity took effect, and Guinn suddenly resumed his full weight in her arms.

"You said Susan was up?" she asked Koschei, who looked like he'd been beaten with a stick, but didn't stop, heading straight for medi-bay.

"Yes, I told you, she's already in the medi-bay. Did you think she'd sleep while he was in danger?" he asked briskly, even though he was nearly staggering as he followed behind her. Moira put an arm around him, supporting him wordlessly as they carried their wounded in.

"I didn't know if she would be conscious. I must have missed the technical specs on the Arkytior," Tomoko snarked back.

"She shouldn't be, but she is," Koschei replied."I have to get back to the console," he told Moira, who simply turned and walked him back without a word.

She shouldn't be, was a gross understatement, Tomoko decided as she walked into the medi-bay. Susan was pale and her eyes looked bruised. She was shaking like a leaf, but still standing. Her long ginger hair was suddenly short now, with the ends charred and her skin was reddened in places, like it was freshly healed.

"On this table, please. Thank you for bringing him," Susan said, her voice weak and thready.

Tomoko laid him down as requested.

"You deal with Guinn, we'll take care of everything else." She flipped up her faceplate, now that her hands were free, and started getting the unconscious girls on tables. The Mashas were largely taking care of themselves, relying on their healing factors, yanking out stingers, leaving Susan to deal with Guinn's injuries.

K-9 came out from under one of the beds and fetched and carried for Tomoko, acting as nurse for all of them in turn.

Guinn was just barely conscious. His clothes had been burned away and large patches of his skin were charred black. Had he been human, he'd already be dead. His Time Lord biology was stubborn and persistent, though even it had it's limitations, which he had pushed past the breaking point. His ears and nose were bleeding profusely, and his eyes were turning a deep shade of purple.

Susan began working on him, repairing the internal organs one at a time, hands steady, even as the rest of her shook, concentrated on healing him.

Once she had her sisters stabilized, Tomoko walked back to where Susan was working on Guinn, watching them both with concerned eyes, but Susan had nothing left to give just then. She was so tired and weak, but she couldn't stop, or Guinn would die.

"He's haemorrhaging, his brain..." she muttered to herself and moved to relieve the pressure and stop the bleeding. "K-9, I need a shunt here please," she called and the robot dog moved quickly to assist her.

"Will he be okay?" Tomoko's voice sounded worried and unhappy.

"I don't know, please, just let me work," Susan's replied, more exhausted than she'd ever been in her life and perilously close to tears. "No, no, no!" she chanted, as his vital signs plunged.

He blinked, very slowly, as though his body had forgotten how to function and Susan's hearts fluttered in fear.

"What's happening?" Tomoko cried, as the hospital bed alarms began to beep loudly.

Susan moved with frantic calm, trying to push her emotions away from herself, so that she could focus on healing Guinn. He was slipping away, she could feel it. She simply put her head down and kept going, forcing her eyes to stay clear, so she could read the indicators.

"Please, love, please," she whispered, not even aware of what she was saying. "Don't do this, please don't do this." She was chanting the words, her hands moving to slough off dead skin and place skin patches on his burns, even as she was thinking of the next step, the next thing she had to do.

"Mistress?" K-9 whined.

"Stabilize his bloody vitals," she murmured, talking as much to herself as to him.

"Where's Adie?" Tomoko asked suddenly.

"Zero Room, she's regenerating," Susan replied, but she had no energy or attention to spare beyond that. "I told him! I told him to stop bleeding in my medi-bay!" she cried, desperation making her voice ragged.

"Well, that's him," Tomoko soothed. "He's always been really inconsiderate." It was nonsense of course, whistling in the dark, but it gave Susan enough strength to blink back the tears again and keep working.

She was fighting her worst enemy, the enemy that all doctors fought, had fought throughout time. She battled death to keep him with her and this time she was scared that she could lose.


End file.
